Adopted daughters and adopted daughters-in-law in Taiwan: a mortality analysis

Abstract

Adoption is sometimes considered paradoxical from an evolutionary perspective because the costs spent supporting an adopted child would be better spent on rearing one's own. Kin selection theory is commonly used to solve this paradox, because the adoption of closely related kin contributes to the inclusive fitness of the adoptive parent. In this paper, we perform a novel test of kin selection theory in the context of adoption by asking whether adopted daughters-in-law, who contribute directly (i.e. genealogically) to the perpetuation of their adoptive families' lineages, experience lower mortality than daughters adopted for other purposes in historical Taiwan. We show that both classes of adopted daughter suffer lower mortality than biological daughters, but that the protective effect of adoption is stronger among daughters who were not adopted with the intention of perpetuating the family lineage. We speculate as to the possible benefits of such a pattern and emphasize the need to move beyond typological definitions of adoption to understand the specific costs and benefits involved in different forms of caring for others' children.