Class and Family in a Modernizing Society

Differential in participation in extended families are presented for a probability sample of West Malaysian currently married women from fifteen to forty-four years of age. Statistical adjustments are introduced to control for parental mortality and the migration of either parents or children away from a common locale of residence. In multivariate analyses, it is shown that Chinese wives were more likely to live with husband's parents and Malay wives were more likely to live with wife's parents. Indian and Pakistani women were intermediate. Net of other variables, the wife's education, her current place of residence, and her husband's income were found to have smaller effects on extended-family participation, but young wives were significantly more likely to have participated in extended family units both right after marriage and at the interview date.