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 female child mortality in this county is probably caused primarily by discrimination against girls in curative health care rather than in preventive health care or food and nutrition. Although discrimination occurs in all kinds of families and communities, discrimination itself is highly selective, and is primarily against girls with some specific characteristics. It is argued that the excess mortality of girls is caused fundamentally by the strong son preference in traditional Chinese culture, but exacerbated by the government-guided family planning programme and regulations. This suggests that it is crucial to raise the status of girls within the family and community so as to mitigate the pressures to discriminate against girls in China’s low fertility regime. Finally, the possible policy options to improve female child survival in contemporary rural China are discussed.

中国历史上一直存在嫁娶和招赘两种婚姻形式。由于各种社会、经济、文化和人口因素的影响，在农村中嫁娶式婚姻占绝对主导地位，而招赘式婚姻则非常少见。本文利用陕西省略阳县和三原县的调查数据，对于应时性和制度性两种类型的招赘式婚姻的影响因素进行了比较研究。

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 occurs when uxorilocal marriage is relatively prevalent. Using data from a survey in two counties of Shaanxi-Lueyang, where both kinds of uxorilocal marriage are prevalent, and Sanyuan, where uxorilocal marriage is rare and usually contingent-this paper employs logistic regression models in a quantitative comparative study of determinants of uxorilocal marriage in rural China. We show that the purposes and prevalence of the two types of uxorilocal marriage differ and that their determinants are also different in the two counties. In Sanyuan, the determinants are only a couple's sibling composition, membership in a large family clan, and educational level. In Lueyang, in addition to those determinants in Sanyuan, important contributions to the type of uxorilocal marriage include a couple's parental marriage type, age at marriage, adoption status, marriage arrangement, and their attitudes toward uxorilocal marriage. The results indicate the potential importance of encouraging uxorilocal marriage in rural areas as a means of mitigating demographic and social problems related to son preference, such as high sex ratio at birth and lack of old-age security, which are projected for China's future.