Shengbin Wei, Qin XUE and I just published a paper on the kin networks of local officials in the History of the Family. Here is the link: https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2026.2659970. We compare the family backgrounds of officials according to the type of degree they held, including purchased and exam degrees, and also according to the type of appointment they held: regular, acting, or expectant. We show that holders of higher-level exam degrees were more likely to have kin with degrees than holders of lower-level exam degrees and holders of purchased degrees. This is somewhat different from the relationship of family background and educational attainment observed by Robert Mare for the US, where the importance of family background declined at progressively higher levels of attainment. It resembles the one reported for the US by Florencia Torche when she compared college graduates and holders of Master’s or higher degrees: for the latter, family background was more important for subsequent outcomes, partly because college graduates with advantaged family backgrounds were the most likely to go on and earn the professional degrees that were associated with higher incomes.
Along the way, we introduce a new dataset based on Tongguanlu rosters of serving officials that were compiled and distributed towards the end of the Qing. These rosters were notable because they are one of only a few sources that provide information about the kin of holders of Shengyuan (生員) degrees, as well as holders of purchased degrees. For Shengyuan, the only other systematic rosters of which we are are aware are Shengyuanlu (生員綠) that were compiled at the county or prefecture level. Jiang Qin at Shanghai Jiao Tong University recently published an analysis of Shengyuanlu from one county. Information about the kin of large numbers of degree holders should eventually be available from ongoing efforts to digitize large numbers of genealogies, but these may be several years from completion.
Our results
This is a revised version of a manuscript that we shared at SocArXiv. Please read and cite this published version instead.
Full citation:
Wei, S., Campbell, C., & Xue, Q. (2026). Kin networks of local officials in 19th and Early 20th century China. The History of the Family, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2026.2659970
Here is the abstract:
We introduce a new source for the study of the kin networks, qualifications, and careers of officials in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: a dataset constructed from Tongguanlu rosters of officials that include their resumes, degree or other qualifications and rosters of their kin. In contrast with other sources that have been used to study the social origins of holders of high examination degrees including national Jinshi, provincial Juren and exam Gongsheng, Tongguanlu include holders of less prestigious purchased degrees and prefectural Shengyuan exam degrees who accounted for a large share of officials, especially local ones, in the nineteenth century. Information about kin includes not only the names and degrees held by patrilineal father, grandfather, and great-grandfather commonly recorded for national or provincial examination degree holders that have been studied previously, but detailed information about uncles, great-uncles, male cousins, sons, and nephews, and basic information about female kin including mothers, grandmothers and great-grandmothers, daughters. We provide background on the Tongguanlu as a source, describe how we constructed the dataset, summarize its contents, and then present results on the posts, qualifications, and kin networks of local officials. We show that officials who held purchased degrees and low-level Shengyuan examination degrees were less likely than holders of higher degrees to have other kin who held degrees and that officials with regular and expectant appointments were more likely to have kin with degrees than officials with acting appointments.