Marcus W Feldman
Biographic Data
| ID | 167497 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marcus W Feldman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marcus W |
| FAMILY NAME | Feldman |
| SIGNATURE | FELDMAN M W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0664-3803 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 97 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 364 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 97 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The impacts of disaster resettlement on sustainable household well-being in Southern Shaanxi, China
Not by Selection Alone: Expanding the Scope of Gene‐Culture Coevolution
Gene‐culture coevolution (GCC)—an ambitious synthesis of biological and social sciences is often used to explain the evolution of key human traits. Despite the framework's broad conceptual appeal however, empirical evidence is often perceived as limited to a few key examples like lactase persistence. We argue this apparent gap between theoretical appeal and empirical evidence stems from conceptual ambiguities regarding the scope of relevant gene‐…
Synergies and trade-offs between livelihood capitals in building resilience of urban resettled households in China
Culture is not ecology
Household livelihood resilience and natural resource dependence: Understanding their relationship for rural China’s disaster resettlement
Disaster resettlement has been adopted as a crucial way to improve household livelihood in rural China. • We test the relationship between household livelihood resilience and natural resource dependence (NRD). • Household livelihood resilience has a positive effect on NRD. • The livelihood resilience and NRD of relocated households is lower than the non-relocated households. • The NRD for households in centralized resettlement and voluntary reloc…
Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience
Although virtually all academics who study human ‘race’ agree that it is a social construct, members of the general public still commonly regard ‘race’ as a biological property (i.e. they think that ‘races’ are genetically distinct). Even though empirical data from genetics and other fields do not support biological conceptions of race, this erroneous viewpoint is widely held, suggesting that there are impediments to effective communication of th…
Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity
A new account of the central role developmental processes play in evolution A new scientific view of evolution is emerging—one that challenges and expands our understanding of how evolution works. Recent research demonstrates that organisms differ greatly in how effective they are at evolving. Whether and how each organism adapts and diversifies depends critically on the mechanistic details of how that organism operates—its development, physiolog…
Cultural transmission, networks, and clusters among Austronesian-speaking peoples
With its linguistic and cultural diversity, Austronesia is important in the study of evolutionary forces that generate and maintain cultural variation. By analysing publicly available datasets, we have identified four classes of cultural features in Austronesia and distinct clusters within each class. We hypothesized that there are differing modes of transmission and patterns of variation in these cultural classes and that geography alone would b…
Human culture is uniquely open-ended rather than uniquely cumulative
How Does Migration Affect HIV Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Involuntary Bachelors? The Mediating Roles of Neighborhoods and Social Networks
Care-receivers’ expected intergenerational support in aging rural China: A perspective of sustainable livelihoods and the sandwich effect
Expected intergenerational support reflects how potential care-receivers estimate the future supply of and demand for intergenerational support. The population of rural China is aging quickly, and future care-receivers in rural China are today’s young and middle-aged, who are now experiencing a decline in fertility as well as urbanization and migration. These changes influence the distribution of resources across generations within families and m…
Sexual network and condom use among male migrants in the context of China’s gender imbalance
(household registration) in China. Descriptive statistics, univariate analyses, and multilevel random intercept models were used to investigate the characteristics of sexual networks and their associations with condom use. We found that age, marital status, type of sex partners, support (the main help given to each sex partner by the participant), type of sexual intercourse, and stability of sexual relationships were associated with condom use. T…
How Family Living Arrangements and Migration Distances Shape the Settlement Intentions of Rural Migrant Workers in China
Rural migrant workers and their families will decide the future of China's urbanization. Using data from the "China Migrants Dynamic Survey and Hundreds of Villages Investigation" carried out in 2018, we examine whether and how family living arrangements and migration distances shape rural migrant workers' settlement intentions in urban areas. In general, rural migrant workers' settlement intention is shown to be weak. However, individuals with c…
Disaster Resettlement and Adaptive Capacity among Rural Households in China
It has long been thought that the implementation of resettlement programs should focus on livelihood reconstruction in the long run rather than just concentrating on material compensation. There is to date little empirical evidence of the extent to which disaster resettlement may affect household adaptive capacity (HAC) in rural communities. To explore whether and how disaster resettlement is shaping HAC, this article conceptualizes and measures …
Is change of natural capital essential for assessing relocation policies? A case from Baihe county in western China
Whether or not reduction of natural capital should be a focus in assessing relocation policies is addressed by investigating a resettlement project for disaster prevention (also for poverty alleviation) in Baihe County in western China. Using multiple linear regression, the associations between livelihood assets (including natural capital) and the acceptance of relocation policies are examined. Two index systems are employed to measure resettlers…
Socioeconomic Status, Institutional Power, and Body Mass Index among Chinese Adults
Despite the vast literature on the socioeconomic status (SES) gradient of obesity among adult people, no study has investigated the relationship between institutional power and body mass index. Using national survey data from the "China Labor-force Dynamics Survey 2016" (CLDS 2016), multistage cluster-stratified probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling was employed to select cases from 29 provinces, cities, and autonomous regions in China.…
Public Participation and Governance Performance in Gender-Imbalanced Central Rural China: The Roles of Trust and Risk Perception
The study investigates the impact of public participation on governance performance in a risk society. A trust-based participatory paradigm is proposed as a viable framework. Using data from a 2018 survey of family planning services in Hubei, China, this study develops hypotheses drawn from causal mechanisms of participatory governance. A structural equation modeling (SEM) approach is employed to disentangle the direct effect of public participat…
Advantages of being bicultural: Acculturation and mental health among rural-urban migrants in China
The Risk of HIV/STDs Infection and Transmission Among Never-Married Male Migrants in China: Is Risk Attributable to Bachelorhood or Migration
The Status of Family Resilience: Effects of Sustainable Livelihoods in Rural China
Family resilience is the capacity of a family to mitigate adversity using its resources, structure, and internal connections. In rural China, where sustainable livelihoods are changing rapidly because of urbanization and migration, it is not clear how family resilience interacts with sustainability of livelihoods. This study of rural Chinese families classifies individual's perceived family resilience and discusses how sustainable livelihoods inf…
Sex with partners met online: Risky sexual behavior among bachelors in rural China
In the context of gender imbalance and marriage squeeze in China, this study identifies socio-demographic characteristics of bachelors who reported having sex with partners whom they met online and examines associations between having sex with such partners and other risky sexual behaviors. Data are from a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2017. 735 men who have rural household registration (hukou, in Chinese), and who were at least 28 years ol…
Migration, Social Networks, and HIV Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Involuntary Bachelors in Rural China
The Impact of the Anti-Poverty Relocation and Settlement Program on Rural Households’ Well-Being and Ecosystem Dependence: Evidence from Western China
To evaluate the effect of China’s anti-poverty relocation and settlement program (ARSP) on both human well-being and ecosystem conservation, we divide the relationship between household well-being and ecosystem dependence into four modes and examine the impact of ARSP on these modes by using household survey data. It finds that relocated households and those under centralized resettlement, voluntary relocation, and new stage relocation fall close…
The status of perceived community resilience in transitional rural society: An empirical study from central China
During China's recent social transition, rural communities have experienced rapid changes in resources, organizational structure, and governance due to urbanization, rural industrialization, and rural-urban migration. How these communities react to social adversity and uncertainty can be assessed with an index of perceived community resilience. Using a Chinese version of the perceived community resilience scale, we analyze data from a multilevel …
Widowhood and mortality risk of older people in rural China: Do gender and living arrangement make a difference
Increased mortality after spousal bereavement has been observed in many populations. Few studies have investigated the widowhood effect in a traditional culture where the economy is underdeveloped. The reasons for the widowhood effect and its gender dynamic are not well understood. In this study, we assessed whether the widowhood-associated excess mortality exists and differs by gender and living arrangement in rural China. We used a six-wave pan…
The Role of Social Networks in the Integration of Chinese Rural–Urban Migrants: A Migrant–Resident Tie Perspective
Using data from a survey of rural–urban migrants in a city in China, this paper investigates the relationships between migrant–resident ties and migrant integration. Migrant integration is assessed with respect to three dimensions: acculturation, socioeconomic integration and psychological integration. Migrant networks are divided into three categories: kin resident ties, non-kin resident ties and non-resident ties. The relation between resources…
Floating Choices: A Generational Perspective on Intentions of Rural-Urban Migrants in China
Using data from a 2005 survey of rural-urban migrants in Shenzhen, we investigate the intentions of two groups of migrants. We use the birth years from 1970 to 1980 as a reasonable range of dividing lines to separate the two groups. For each year we divide the sample into those born before that year and those born in or after that year. These are referred to as the old generation and the new generation, respectively. Three possible development tr…
On the 'Making' of an Assemblage of Stone Tools
An attempt is made to view an assemblage of stone tools as something in the process of being generated over time. A formal model is developed which includes variables such as activities and tool types and also draws attention to somewhat less visible variables that enter into the formation of an assemblage such as the dropping rates of tools and mapping relations between tool types and activities. Implications of the model for the interpretation …
Individual Versus Social Learning: Evolutionary Analysis in a Fluctuating Environment
A model for haploid asexual inheritance of social and individual learning is proposed. Animals of one genotype, individual learners (IL), behave optimally for the current environment and, except for a fixed cost due to learning errors, have the optimal fitness in that environment. Animals of the other genotype are social learners (SL) each of whom copies a random individual from the previous generation. However, the phenotype of a social learner …
Replicated Collection of Site Surfaces
The replicated collection of the surface of a site provides one way of learning more about a site during survey work. Examples of the use of this technique at 2 sites in southern Italy are presented. The suggestion is made that the site surface in some cases can be viewed as operating as a biased multinomial sampling process. A statement of this hypothesis in formal terms is given
"Bare Branches" and the Marriage Market in Rural China: Preliminary Evidence from a Village-Level Survey
Using data from a village survey in rural China, this study explores the relationships between current prevalence of involuntary bachelorhood and its causes and social consequences at the village level. We find that bachelors, inter-county marriage and marriage fraud exist in all regions, and are expected to become more frequent with the increasing surplus of males born after 1980 entering the marriage market. The marriage squeeze and social prob…
Marriage Squeeze, Never-Married Proportion, and Mean Age at First Marriage in China
China's sex ratio imbalance and the surplus of males have received a great deal of attention, but measures of the extent of the marriage squeeze do not take into account the marital status of population. In this paper, we devise an index of the marriage squeeze for the never-married population and use it to project the male marriage squeeze from 2000 to 2060. From the predicted population and nuptiality tables, we estimate trends in the proportio…
Gene-Culture Coevolutionary Theory: A Test Case
Acculturation of rural–urban migrants in urbanising China: A multidimensional and bicultural framework
In many developing countries, including China, large numbers of internal migrants move to cities from rural areas in pursuit of an urban dream, but few studies have addressed acculturation of rural–urban migrants. We construct a multidimensional (in terms of components of acculturation such as practices, values, and identifications) and bicultural acculturation framework to understand adaptation by these migrants. Using data from a Guangzhou surv…
Male Marriage Squeeze and Inter-provincial Marriage in Central China: Evidence from Anhui
Since the 1990s, inter-provincial female migration for marriage has become important in central and eastern rural China. Using survey data from X County in rural Anhui Province, we explore the arrangement of inter-provincial marriages, as well as the characteristics of husbands and wives, marital satisfaction, and marital stability for these marriages. We find that inter-provincial marriage is an important option for local men to respond to the m…
Demographic Consequences of Gender Discrimination in China: Simulation Analysis of Policy Options
The Emergence of Social Learning in a Temporally Changing Environment: A Theoretical Model
Advantages of being bicultural: Acculturation and mental health among rural-urban migrants in China
China's Marriage Squeeze: A Decomposition into Age and Sex Structure
China’s Missing Girls in the Three Decades from 1980 to 2010
Sex Ratios and Crime:Evidence from China's One-Child Policy * Sex ratios (males to females) rose markedly in China in the last two decades, and crime rates nearly doubled.This paper examines whether the two are causally linked.High sex ratios imply fewer married men, and marriage has been conjectured to be a socializing force.Our paper exploits the quasi-natural experiment generated by the Chinese one-child policy, a policy which is widely held t…
The impact on rural livelihoods and ecosystem services of a major relocation and settlement program: A case in Shaanxi, China
Marriage Form and Son Preference in Rural China: An Investigation in Three Counties
Using data from two surveys in three counties among which the prevalence of uxorilocal marriage varies greatly, this paper analyzes effects of marriage form, as well as individual, family, and social factors on son preference in the context of strict birth control in rural China. It is shown that, under the Chinese patrilineal joint family system, son preference can be inferred from the reproductive behavior of couples in virilocal marriage but n…
Marriage form and family division in three villages in rural China
This paper presents a study of the influence of children's marriage form and other characteristics on whether married couples in three villages in rural China establish a family separate from the joint family of their natal kin. The results reveal that, for children with a brother, sons in virilocal marriages are more likely than daughters in uxorilocal marriages to establish a family separate from that of their parents and do so earlier than the…
Cultural Transmission of Uxorilocal Marriage in Lueyang, China
In this article, the authors report on a study of the cultural transmission of uxorilocal marriage in Lueyang, China. They find that uxorilocal marriage has been commonly accepted and practiced in Lueyang since the beginning of this century, and uxorilocal marriage has been both a contingent and an institutional option for farmers with both preservative and practical purposes. Causes underlying contingent uxorilocal marriage are mostly demographi…
The Impact of the Anti-Poverty Relocation and Settlement Program on Rural Households’ Well-Being and Ecosystem Dependence: Evidence from Western China
To evaluate the effect of China’s anti-poverty relocation and settlement program (ARSP) on both human well-being and ecosystem conservation, we divide the relationship between household well-being and ecosystem dependence into four modes and examine the impact of ARSP on these modes by using household survey data. It finds that relocated households and those under centralized resettlement, voluntary relocation, and new stage relocation fall close…
Family Structure and Competing Demands From Aging Parents and Adult Children Among Middle-Aged People in China
China has experienced the verticalization of family structure. It has changed the support between aging parents and adult children among middle-aged adults who are often in the position of providing support to older and younger generations (sandwiched situation). Using data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we studied the support choice of middle-aged people. Results show that middle-aged people who provided support to older ge…
Marriage Squeeze in China's Future
The preference for sons in China and discrimination against girls have resulted in a male marriage squeeze. This paper develops two new indices of the sex ratio among potential first marriage partners by normalising first marriage frequencies and by eliminating the tempo effect in first marriage. Using two newly developed indices and two existing ones, the authors predict China's marriage squeeze for the period 2000–2100. The authors find that th…
Love or Bread? What Determines Subjective Wellbeing Among Left-Behind Women in Rural China
Social Support and Psychological Well-Being Under Social Change in Urban and Rural China
China’s Population Policy at the Crossroads: Social Impacts and Prospects
On the 'Making' of an Assemblage of Stone Tools
An attempt is made to view an assemblage of stone tools as something in the process of being generated over time. A formal model is developed which includes variables such as activities and tool types and also draws attention to somewhat less visible variables that enter into the formation of an assemblage such as the dropping rates of tools and mapping relations between tool types and activities. Implications of the model for the interpretation …
Models for cultural inheritance: A general linear model
A theory of cultural evolution is proposed based on a general linear mode of cultural transmission. The trait of an individual is assumed to depend on the values of the same trait in other individuals of the same, the previous or earlier generation. The transmission matrix W has as its elements the proportional contributions of each individual (i) of one generation to each individual (j) of another. In addition, there is random variation (copy er…
Towards a Theory of Cultural Evolution
Previous experience in the development of the mathematical theory of biological evolution, has helped the authors toward their theory of cultural evolution. In this review a constant comparison between the two evolutions, in both directions, has led to an interdisciplinary understanding. Cultural transmission is discussed in detail and the ten major modes of transmission are enunciated; cultural traits are defined and the variance within, as well…
Replicated Collection of Site Surfaces
The replicated collection of the surface of a site provides one way of learning more about a site during survey work. Examples of the use of this technique at 2 sites in southern Italy are presented. The suggestion is made that the site surface in some cases can be viewed as operating as a biased multinomial sampling process. A statement of this hypothesis in formal terms is given
Cultural Transmission and Evolution (MPB-16), Volume 16: A Quantitative Approach. (MPB-16)
A number of scholars have found that concepts such as mutation, selection, and random drift, which emerged from the theory of biological evolution, may also explain evolutionary phenomena in other disciplines as well. Drawing on these concepts, Professors Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman classify and systematize the various modes of transmitting "culture" and explore their consequences for cultural evolution. In the process, they develop a mathematical…
Cultural transmission and evolution: A Quantitative Approach.
A study of cultural transmission in Taiwan
L’héritabilité au rancart
Behavior-Dependent Contexts for Repeated Plays of the Prisoner's Dilemma
This article analyzes the game-theoretic stability of three strategies, Tit-For-Tat (TFT), all-Defect (all-D), and all-Cooperate (all-C), that actors might use for repeated plays of the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD). The probability that there will be a next play is assumed to depend on the current behavior of one of the actors—it is w after cooperation and u after a defection—and two cases are examined. The first case is where an actor assumes that th…
Mathematical Evolutionary Theory
An international group of distinguished scientists presents an up-to-date survey of quantitative problems at the forefront of modern evolutionary theory. Their articles illustrate results from the latest research in population and behavioral genetics, molecular evolution, and ecology. Each author gives careful attention to the exposition of the models, the logic of their analysis, and the legitimacy of qualitative biological inferences. The topic…
Gene-Culture Coevolutionary Theory: A Test Case
Niche Construction
Individual Versus Social Learning: Evolutionary Analysis in a Fluctuating Environment
A model for haploid asexual inheritance of social and individual learning is proposed. Animals of one genotype, individual learners (IL), behave optimally for the current environment and, except for a fixed cost due to learning errors, have the optimal fitness in that environment. Animals of the other genotype are social learners (SL) each of whom copies a random individual from the previous generation. However, the phenotype of a social learner …
Y chromosome sequence variation and the history of human populations
Cultural Transmission of Uxorilocal Marriage in Lueyang, China
In this article, the authors report on a study of the cultural transmission of uxorilocal marriage in Lueyang, China. They find that uxorilocal marriage has been commonly accepted and practiced in Lueyang since the beginning of this century, and uxorilocal marriage has been both a contingent and an institutional option for farmers with both preservative and practical purposes. Causes underlying contingent uxorilocal marriage are mostly demographi…
A comparative study of determinants of uxorilocal marriage in two counties of China
A strictly maintained patrilineal family system makes virilocal marriage almost universal and uxorilocal marriage rare in the history of rural China. Uxorilocal marriage can be divided into two types that may be termed, respectively, contingent and institutional. The former preserves family lineages in families without a son and occurs when uxorilocal marriage is uncommon. The latter serves practical economic purposes in families with sons and oc…
Genetic Structure of Human Populations
We studied human population structure using genotypes at 377 autosomal microsatellite loci in 1056 individuals from 52 populations. Within-population differences among individuals account for 93 to 95% of genetic variation; differences among major groups constitute only 3 to 5%. Nevertheless, without using prior information about the origins of individuals, we identified six main genetic clusters, five of which correspond to major geographic regi…
Acceptance Of Two Types Of Uxorilocal Marriage In Contemporary Rural China: The Case Of Lueyang
Using data from a survey of cultural transmission of son preference in Lueyang county, this article reports on a quantitative comparative study on acceptance of two types of uxorilocal marriage in contemporary rural China: contingent, driven by household demographic factors, and institutional, driven by practical economic factors. It is shown that the contingent type is more likely to occur than the institutional, and the latter is transmissible …
Marriage form and family division in three villages in rural China
This paper presents a study of the influence of children's marriage form and other characteristics on whether married couples in three villages in rural China establish a family separate from the joint family of their natal kin. The results reveal that, for children with a brother, sons in virilocal marriages are more likely than daughters in uxorilocal marriages to establish a family separate from that of their parents and do so earlier than the…
Gender Differences in Child Survival in Contemporary Rural China: A County Study
Using data from a survey of deaths of children less than 5 years old conducted in 1997 in a county in Shaanxi Province, China, this paper examines gender differences in child survival in contemporary rural China. First, excess female child mortality in the county in 1994–96 is described, followed by an analysis of the mechanisms whereby the excess mortality takes place, and the underlying social, economic and cultural factors behind it. Excess fe…
Clines, Clusters, and the Effect of Study Design on the Inference of Human Population Structure
Previously, we observed that without using prior information about individual sampling locations, a clustering algorithm applied to multilocus genotypes from worldwide human populations produced genetic clusters largely coincident with major geographic regions. It has been argued, however, that the degree of clustering is diminished by use of samples with greater uniformity in geographic distribution, and that the clusters we identified were a co…
Support from the relationship of genetic and geographic distance in human populations for a serial founder effect originating in Africa
Equilibrium models of isolation by distance predict an increase in genetic differentiation with geographic distance. Here we find a linear relationship between genetic and geographic distance in a worldwide sample of human populations, with major deviations from the fitted line explicable by admixture or extreme isolation. A close relationship is shown to exist between the correlation of geographic distance and genetic differentiation (as measure…
Gender Differences in Activity of Daily Living of the Elderly in Rural China: Evidence from Chaohu
Using data from a sample survey, Well-being of the elderly in Anhui province, China, this paper studies the effects of health, economic and family factors on the activities of daily living (ADLs) as measures of disability for elderly men and women. The objective is to explore reasons for gender differences in ADLs in rural China. Our results suggest that higher incidence rates of chronic diseases, lower cognitive ability, as well as heavier house…
Marriage form and age at first marriage: A comparative study in three counties in contemporary rural China
Using data from two surveys in three counties in which the prevalence of uxorilocal marriage differs greatly, this article analyzes the effects of marriage form, individual, family, and social factors on age at first marriage and spousal age difference. The results show that, under the Chinese patrilineal joint family system, compared with the dominant virilocal marriage form, uxorilocal marriage significantly lowers women's age at first marriage…
Marriage Form and Duration of Postmarital Co-Residence With Parents in Rural China: Evidence from Songzi
This paper uses data from a survey in Songzi county of Hubei province to analyze the relationship between a couple's marriage form and their duration of postmarital co-residence with their parents. The results show that, after controlling for important factors, a couple's marriage form has a significant influence on the duration of their postmarital co-residence with their parents. Among couples, the duration of co-residence increases in the orde…
Geography (51 works) · China (50 works) · Sociology (49 works) · Demography (42 works) · Population (37 works) · Economics (34 works) · Biology (31 works) · Political science (30 works) · Psychology (30 works) · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences (29 works)