First Impressions from the 2000 Census of China

The 2000 census of China has several notable innovations, including a sample long form containing detailed items on migration, housing, and employment. Preliminary data indicate rapid urbanization and continued rapid social change in the 1990s, and apparent success in the government's drive to curtail population growth. Although a post‐enumeration survey indicates that overall data quality is good, the rise of a mobile “floating population” and pressures of the birth planning program caused problems for the enumeration of migrants and infants. Data released to date have been silent on two important issues, fertility and rising sex ratios.     

Sex,Breastfeeding, and Marital Fertility in Pretransition China

Coital frequency is at the heart of the debate over low marital fertility in pretransition China. This study argues that coital frequency in contemporary China is indicative of sexual behavior in an earlier era. Frequency of intercourse is low in China relative to Europe, a natural outgrowth of a traditional family system and related sexual culture only partially transformed by a century of family revolution. Customary sexual behaviors and breastfeeding practices together shaped the Chinese historical fertility regime as they did the European. As explanations for China's low marital fertility, these proximate determinants leave little scope for the operation of fecundity‐reducing malnutrition on the one hand, or deliberate fertility control on the other. The fertility regimes of other pretransition agrarian societies more closely resemble China's than Europe's, seeming to confirm a pattern of European demographic exceptionalism.     

Age patterns of chinese marital fertility, 1950–1981

Coale and Trussell’s model of marital fertility is used to analyze data from China’s National One-per-Thousand Fertility Survey. Rural China experienced a regime of natural fertility until 1970, after which levels of fertility control rose with unprecedented speed and with an age pattern starkly dissimilar from that observed in other populations. Urban marital fertility was apparently under a modest level of deliberate control in the 1950s, with a sustained rise in control beginning in 1963. Natural fertility was low relative to other populations, with the urban level exceeding the rural.     

China unveils its monumental two per thousand fertility survey

The author reports on China's 1988 Two per Thousand Survey, using information from papers presented at an international seminar in Beijing that focused on fertility and contraception. "Seminar papers confirmed the high quality of the survey and its potential for research on topics ranging from rates of sterility to the demography of Tibet. They also suggested that family planning in China is moving on to a wider agenda. The interest of family planners is turning to issues of health, motivation for family planning, and contraception prior to a couple's first birth."     

China's rural population statistics at the local level

Written for those who use Chinese population data and want a better understanding of their provenance and reliability and those who may directly utilize local level materials in studies of Chinese population and social structure, this report describes the statistical system of 1 rural county, Shifang Xian in the Chengdu Plain of Sichuan Province. It is based on interviews with local government officials, on examinations of population records and reports at different levels of administration, and on a sample survey of households conducted in the winter and spring of 1981. Until the mid 1970s, the primary source of China's rural population data was the household and vital events registers established in the 1950s. Following the formation of the Birth Planning Office in 1971, a separate reporting system of population statistics began to develop alongside the household registration system. The birth planning system uses the reports of team, brigade, and commune level cadres concerned with health work and women's affairs to provide a richer and more current set of vital events and birth planning data than the household registration system could provide. Discrepancies in data emerging from the 3 sources are bound to occur because of error and because of the different methods used in the compilation of data. Currently, there are 2 basic sources for population data in Shifang Xian: the monthly reports of the brigade level birth planning workers and the year end reports of the team accountants. The household and vital events registers, once central to population statistics, retain their legal role but have diminished importance for statistical purposes. There continues to be important questions about the operation of the statistical system. With increasing reliance on the newly developed birth planning statistical system for information on vital rates, Shifang has apparently moved from statistics based on date of registration derived from a de jure system of vital events registration to statistics based on date of occurrence derived from de facto or quasi de facto records of health workers and team accountants. As the latter system is more accurate, it seems likely that transition has been marked by discontinuities in time series of population counts and vital rates. The statistical system observed in Shifang is administered by highly motivated cadres. It apparently produces statistics of good quality. Linkage to the economy, constant updating, surveillance of pregnancy, and a level of overlap give the overall system considerable strength and should not produce substantial errors under normal circumstances. A serious remaining problem, i.e., the underreporting of infant deaths, is primarily due to inadequate training of statistical workers. Shifang Xian is an unusual county, and no conclusions should be drawn about the accuracy of rural population statistics based on performance there.     

The Origins of the Chinese Fertility Decline

Education and urbanization are shown to have been negatively correlated to marital fertility in both urban and rural China prior to the initiation of the substantial family planning programs. We maintain that early use of contraception by better educated and urban strata is a plausible cause of the observed fertility differentials because other proximate variables are unlikely. Coale's m, a presumed indicator of controlled fertility, suggests early fertility control in urban and better educated strata. The apparent preprogram beginnings of fertility control among educational and urban elites does not, however, minimize the awesome effects on fertility of the powerful Chinese family planning programs, once begun.     

Village Context,Women's Status,and Son Preference Among Rural Chinese Women*

Abstract This study analyzes the variation in one measure of son preference that is of particular relevance in rural China: whether a woman considers it important to have a son, and the reasons why sons are important. To summarize our conclusions, we find that the expectation that a son will provide financial support in old age is strongly associated with the response that a son is important. This expectation is stronger in low income and mountainous villages, but it is weaker among women who earn cash income. The importance of a son is positively associated with ancestor worship and negatively associated with respondents' education, personal autonomy, the extent to which the husband shares housework, and exposure to the world beyond the village. We also find that sex‐specific rates of infant mortality vary systematically with mother's response on the importance of a son, providing a test of the validity of our preference measure.