ADOPTION AS AN HEIRSHIP STRATEGY UNDER DEMOGRAPHIC CONSTRAINTS - A CASE FROM 19TH-CENTURY JAPAN

This article examines the adoption practices of South-Tama peasants in late nineteenth-century Japan on the basis of an 1870 household regis ter (2,057 households). We find that the institution of adoption was t he major heirship strategy for these households. The probability of ad option varied by the differential number of surviving siblings, and by economic status, thereby creating social mobility among them. Adoptio n was an important way to redistribute sons, benefitting households wi th and without sons and preventing household extinction.