Abstract
We describe a gendered pattern of circulation of youth through households in two Micronesian societies. Yapese girls and female teens shift into vertically extended households, where elders reside, between ages 11 and 17. The opposite pattern pertains in Kosrae, where females shift between ages 11 and 14 into two‐generation households. The opposing patterns are explained by opposite divisions of labor, with Yap having a female farming system and Kosrae having a male farming system. In both instances the residence shifts of female youth between middle childhood and the late teens involve movements into the kinds of households where they do the most work, per capita. We explain the patternfirst in terms of the desire to teachyoung people socially valued work roles, and, secondly, in terms of the need for their labor. These analyses demonstrate the need for processual modes of understanding household composition and its effects on the formation of gender roles and transmission of knowledge.
Highlights
In In Her Prime: A New View of Middle-Aged Women
In our research in two Micronesian societies, Yap and Kosrae, we find that individual experiences with households vary by gender and by age group
We have demonstrated systematic re of labor, children's work, household t male and female children. In both Yap residence emerge in middle childhood ages 11 and 14, and disappear by the la graphic differences in the experiences are strongly correlated with the patte especially female work
Summary
In In Her Prime: A New View of Middle-Aged Women. Judith K. In our research in two Micronesian societies, Yap and Kosrae, we find that individual experiences with households vary by gender and by age group.
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