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Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
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OCR for page 1
SUMMARY
In 1982 the People's Republic of China carried out a
census with a more comprehensive interview schedule than
ever before employed in China and using a very large,
carefully chosen, and extensively trained field staff.
The census was preceded by pilot surveys to test the
instruments and field procedures. A tabulation of 10
percent of the individual returns has been completed,
published in China, and made available abroad in limited
circulation. Also in 1982 a fertility survey covering a
very large sample of households (total population of more
than 1 million) was conducted in China, and its results
have been published in great detail in a special issue of
the Chinese Journal Population and Economics. In addi-
tion, the distribution of the population by sex and
single years of age as enumerated in the censuses of 1953
and 1964 has been recently released. This new informa-
tion, supplemented by time series of registered births
and deaths and end-of-year population totals extending
back to the 1950s and by data from other large recent
surveys, provides a sound basis for constructing an
accurate and detailed history of the remarkable changes
in fertility, mortality, and marriage that have occurred
in China since the People's Republic was established.
The newly available information includes complete
histories of marriage and childbearing of women up to age
67 in the 1/1,000 fertility survey of 1982. The
responses have been analyzed and tabulated in the form of
marriage rates and birth rates by single years of age in
single calendar years from 1950 to 1981. When the survey
data are combined and compared with the census data for
1953, 1964, and 1982 on numbers of persons by sex and
single years of age, they pass a series of stringent
tests of accuracy and consistency. The same analysis
1
OCR for page 2
2
reveals that official data on birth and death rates have
understated the true numbers by a considerable margin.
The tests support the substantive findings in this report
on levels and changes in fertility, nuptiality, and
mortality in China since 1950.
Fertility Rates. The birth rate in China has been
higher than that listed in official sources. In the
1950s the birth rate was generally above 40 per 1,000
until a precipitous fall--from 42.5 per 1,000 in 1957 to
21.9 in 1961--that coincided with the Great Leap Forward
and the ensuing years of economic disruption and famine.
The post-crisis peak birth rate in 1963 was just short of
SO births per 1,000.
A more useful fertility measure, the total fertility
rate (TFR)--the average number of children that would be
born in a lifetime to women subject to the birth rates by
age in a given period--was about 6.0 before the Great
Leap Forward, declined to 3.3 in 1961, rose to 7.5 in
1963, returned to 6.0 in the mid-1960s, fell steeply to
only 2.2 in 1980, and then rose slightly to over 2.6 in
1981 and 1982. The birth data on which these fertility
rates are based are derived from the new detailed
information, especially that from the fertility survey.
It is clear that the number of births previously listed
in official sources has been incomplete: by more than IS
percent in the 1950s, by less than 10 percent in the late
1960s and early 1970s, and by 15 percent or more since
the intensification of the antinatalist program in 1979.
Age Pattern of Fertility. The age pattern of fertility
of married women in the 1950s was a pattern of gradual
decline in the rate of childbearing with age until age
30; the decline steepened after age 30 and especially
after age 35. This age pattern closely resembles the
early gradual and later steep decline of marital fertility
rates with age of woman that is characteristic of popula-
tions in which couples practice little contraception or
induced abortion. This age pattern of marital fertility
in the 1950s supports the inference of little use of
contraception. In the 1970s (and especially in 1980), by
contrast, marital fertility rates fell very steeply with
age of women after their late 20s, a pattern character-
istic of very general resort to contraception to limit
fertility after desired family size is reached.
In 1961, when the TFR fell to only a little more than
half the TFR of 1955 or 1957, the fertility of married
OCR for page 3
3
women was very much reduced at all ages. A nearly uniform
reduction in fertility at different ages is consistent
with a quasi-biological cause of low fertility--i.e., low
fertility was the result of disruption of normal life and
famine-induced subfecundity rather than a large increase
in the use of contraception. The unmatched post-crisis
TFR of 7.5 in 1963 involved peak marital fertility rates
at all ages. These high rates at all ages may also have
a quasi-biological explanation. Newly married couples
(there was a very high first-marriage rate in 1962) and
couples resuming normal life are especially susceptible
to the risk of childbearing since few of the women are
protected from the risk of pregnancy because of nursing a
previously born child.
Contraceptive Use.
In 1981 contraception--mostly
sterilization, the IUD, and contraceptive pills--was
practiced by more than two-thirds of married women aged
15 to 49.
Mean Age at First Marriage. The mean age at first
marriage of women was about 18.S vears in the 1940s,
about a year older than that estimated for rural China in
1930. The mean age at marriage rose gradually (with some
fluctuations) to a little more than 20 in 1970, and then
steeply to more than 23 in 1979. There was then a slight
decline, of about four- tenths a year, to a mean age of
22.7 years in the first half of 1982.
Effects on Fertility of Changes in Mean Age at First
Marriage. The changing age of entry into marriage
contributed strongly to changes in fertility. Had the
_
noncontraceptive marital fertility rates at each age of
the 1950s continued, the increase in age at marriage by
itself, by exempting many younger women from the risk of
childbearing, would have led to a TFR in 1980 that was 20
percent below the TFR of 1950--a hypothetical decline
about one-third as great as the actual one. The rise in
age at marriage in the 1970s would have produced (by a
different mechanism) a 20 percent reduction in the TFR
during that decade even if from 1970 on married women had
successfully attained unchanging coals of restricted
family size. _
percent decline in TFR even though married women produce
an unchanging total number of children per marriage--
arises from the temporary reduction in the number of
marriages that is caused by a rise in mean age at
~ , _ , ,
This annarentlv anomalous effect--a 20
OCR for page 4
4
marriage. About one-third of the reduction in the TFR
from 1970 to 1980 was associated with the increase in age
at marriage and would have occurred with constant
duration-specific marital fertility rates.
When mean age at marriage ceases to rise, the diminu-
tion in the number of marriages caused by rising age at
marriage ceases, and the number of the newly married
women increases. In 1980-82 a sharp increase in the
total first-marriage rate accompanied the termination and
slight reversal of the increase in mean age at marriage.
Most of the upturn in TFR after 1980 was the result of
the marriage boom in 1980-82 and would have occurred with
constant fertility rates at each duration of marriage.
Upward pressure on the TFR will continue because the
highest marital fertility rates occur one or two years
after the date of marriage; the large number of marriages
in 1981 and 1982 will inflate births in 1983 and 1984
even if the recently married have only one or two
children.
Urban/Rural and Other Fertility Differences. Before
,
the temporary sharp decline in the TFR that began in
1958, the TFR in the cities was about 10 percent below
the rural TFR; about half of the difference in fertility
can be ascribed to later marriage in the urban population.
As shown in Figure 1, between 1960 and 1966, the urban
TFR fell to about half the rural TFR, and it remained at
about that fraction when the large reduction in rural
fertility began in 1970. Other differentials in fertility
that are usually present in the first years of a major
reduction were present in China in 1981: fertility was
lower for more educated women and for women in higher
occupational categories; the minority ethnic groups had
much higher fertility than the rural Han majority.
Future Trends in Fertility. Further upward pressure
on the birth rate in the late 1980s is built into the age
distribution of the Chinese population, shown in Figure
2. Women in their early 20s in 1982 were born in 1958-61,
a period of greatly reduced birth cohorts. In the next
few years the very large birth cohorts of 1963-70 will be
in the normal ages of first marriage and thereafter in
the very fertile years soon after marriage.
Male/Female Birth Ratios. The large-scale fertility
survey recorded ratios of male to female births that were
very close to the worldwide normal ratio of about 106
OCR for page 5
s
8
7
/
LL
~ 6
to
5
J
1~ 4
L1J
o
%. ~
~ _ ~
^_ ~,
_
1 1 1 1
0 50 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1982
·~
it--- ~
I /\\ \~~\eee A.--.
[1 \
.1 \
t! \
i'
1 \
·.
~ ~1
Total\;;>
/ ~ Urban
~ x`_ ~
-
1 1
YEAR
FIGURE 1 Total Fertility Rates for Urban and Rural Areas
and for China, 1952-82: China
males per 100 females among first and second births in
the rural population, but there were more than 112 males
per 100 females for third- and higher-order births. The
male/female ratio for urban births was somewhat higher
(over 108) for first births, and much higher (about 118)
among the small number (257) of births beyond the first.
Experience in other populations is of slightly declining
male/female ratios with birth order.
Since stopping
rules--no more births following a male--do not affect the
male/female ratio and sex-selective abortion on a large
scale does not seem possible in rural China, the explana-
tion for the reported male/female birth ratios must be
unreported higher-order female births. There may be a
connection between failure to report a higher-order
female birth in the survey and the occurrence of female
infanticide, which has been widely reported (and deplored)
in the Chinese press. Given the penalties imposed in the
one-child campaign and the cultural preference for male
births, higher-order female births are doubtless
especially unwelcome.
OCR for page 6
6
So
80
70
60
50
UJ
40
30
20
10
o
Males
1
; ~
_
_
,~ ~
Females
1 1 ' 1 1 1 1 1
1.5 1.0 0.5
0 0.5 1.0 1.5
PERCENT
FIGURE 2 Age Pyramid of the Population, 1982: China
Source: China, Population Census Office (1983:Table 19).
Life Expectancy. Average death rates by age for each
sex in each intercensal interval can be calculated from
census data and constructed numbers of births. From
these death rates life tables are derived that show the
average age at death that would result from the continued
prevalence of the calculated intercensal average death
rates. The expectation of life at birth increased from
42 for males and 46 for females in 1953-64 to 62 for
males and 63 for females in 1964-68. This increase in
less than two decades replicates the increase typical of
six West European populations from 1870 to 1940. A life
table was recently calculated for 1981 from deaths
reported in the 1982 census. It shows a further increase
in expectation of life at birth to 66 years for males and
69 for females.
Mortality Rates. Official figures on the annual
number of deaths understate the true number by a greater
proportion than the proportionate understatement of the
number of births. It is possible to determine only the
OCR for page 7
7
40
30
UJ
..
20
U]
10
-
/ \ · ·-
~ ~.
O ~
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985
YEAR
FIGURE 3 Death Rates (per 1,000) from Recorded Deaths
(solid line) and Adjusted for Underreporting (dotted
line), 1953-82: China
understatement of the total number of deaths for inter-
censal periods: about 38 percent of the deaths in 1953-64
were not recorded and about 16 percent of the deaths in
1964-82.
According to official sources, annual death rates
(Figure 3) were about 15 per 1,000 in the early 1950s and
declined to about 11 per 1,000 in 1957. There was an
increase in death rates during the years of the Great
Leap Forward and the ensuing crisis, with an officially
listed peak rate of 25 per 1,000 in 1960. The death rate
fell to 10 in 1963 as normal conditions were restored,
then continued to decline to a rate between 6 and 7 per
1,000 in the late 1970s and early 1980s. When the
intercensal aggregate shortfall in the number of death s
derived from official sources is allocated under an
assumption of improving completeness after 1955 and
constant completeness from 1964-82, the estimated death
rate in the early 1950s is above 20, the peak death rate
in 1960 is above 35, and the recent death rate is between
7 and 8 (rather than between 6 and 7). Excess deaths
(those above a linear trend) from 1958-63 are about 16
million when based on the understated official figures
and about 27 million when adjusted for understatement.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
mean age
