The Circulation of Children through Households in Yap and Kosrae

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.

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