|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 8
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
SCOPE OF THE REPORT
This report is a summary of fertility, nuptiality, and
mortality in the People's Republic of China from the
early 1950s to 1982. It is based largely on the single-
year age distributions tabulated in the censuses of less,
1964, and 1982 (with some adjustment) and the detailed
history of fertility and nuptiality collected in the
large-scale 1982 survey of retrospective experience among
311,000 women aged 1S-67. The survey was conducted by
the State Family Planning Commission.
Much of the data presented here are taken from a
special issue of the Chinese journal Population and
Economics, published in 1983, which was devoted to
detailed information about the fertility survey and its
results. Some of the important features of the demography
of China summarized in this report--such as the sequence
of total fertility rates for each year since 1950--are
simply reproduced from Chinese sources (in particular the
special issue of Population and Economics). Other
features, such as birth rates, completeness of official
data on annual births and deaths, marital fertility rates
by age and by duration of marriage, and intercensal life
tables, were calculated for this report. The methods of
calculation range from simple cumulation of fertility
rates to newly invented methods of life-table
construction from census data.
The report is intended as a summary of population
trends and not as an account of their causes. It
presents some treatment of what demographers call the
proximate determinants of fertility, including an
analysis of the influence of changes in nuptiality on
fertility and inferences from the age structure of
8
OCR for page 9
9
marital fertility about the probable absence or prevalence
of contraceptive practice. It also comments on the most
conspicuous features in the evolution of the population:
the deficit of births and the excess of deaths in 1958-61
and the steep decline in fertility after 1970. However,
the aim of the report remains demographic, to describe
and analyze the population patterns in China.
BACKGROUND
With a population of just over 1 billion, China is the
most populous country in the world. Its population is
one-third larger than the second most populous country,
India (with about 725 million in 1984). In area, however,
China ranks only third; with 3.69 million square miles,
it has almost exactly the same area as the United States,
with 3.62 million square miles.
China is geographically
similar to the United States in other ways, too: its
territory extends 3,100 miles from east to west, although
its north-south distance of 3,500 miles is much greater
than that of the United States. China also has extensive
mountainous terrain and arid and semi-arid areas. In
addition, the population of China, like that of the
United States, is concentrated in the eastern part of the
country (see map).
Located in East Asia, China has very long boundaries
(17,445 miles), which include long borders with the
Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic to the
north and northwest, borders with India, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan for the most part to the west, and with the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the south. A cross-
section of the country would show a land mass lying at
low altitudes in the east, rising to plateaus, and on to
the mountains in the west, including the world's tallest,
Mt. Everest at 28,911 feet. China's main lowlands, which
include the Manchurian Plain, the North China Plain, the
Middle and Lower Yangtse River, and the Southeastern
Hills, cover about 386,000 square miles (Kaplan et al.,
1980). These plains in the eastern and southeastern parts
of the country contain large parts of the Chinese
population. Through these plains flow some of China's
major rivers, including Asia's longest, the 4,000-mile
Yangtse, in central China and the 3,000-mile Yellow River
in the north.
Despite a substantial expansion of China's urban
population during the early twentieth century, the
OCR for page 10
10
~OP'~uATtON DISTRi8'~tS~
Source: Hook (1982:40).
'a;. ~~ ,,. I, Or
w ;'< )N " PI
country is still primarily rural; some four-fifths of the
Chinese population reside in rural areas. The largest
cities are Shanghai, on the southeastern coast, and
Beijing, the capital, with 6.3 and 5.5 million inhabi-
tants, respectively. Including the rural populations of
the administrative districts, Shanghai has almost 12
million people and Beijing a little more than 9 million.
The largest province is Sichuan, in the south, with more
than 100 million people; thus, like Uttar Pradesh in
India, if Sichuan Province were an independent nation, it
would rank among the world's 10 most populous countries.
Overall, China is divided into 22 provinces, 5 autonomous
regions, and 3 municipalities.
Some 94 percent of the population of China consists of
ethnic Chinese, known as Han (Kaplan et al., 1980).
However, China is not unified linguistically: within the
Chinese language, many mutually incomprehensible dialects
OCR for page 11
. 11
are spoken, although the written Chinese language is
uniform and can be understood by all. There are also a
number of non-Chinese languages. The official spoken
language of the People's Republic of China is "putonghua, n
meaning "standard speech, n which is based on the northern
Chinese dialect and is sometimes referred to in the West
as Mandarin. China's 54 national minorities--60 million
people-- live scattered across the half of China's land
mass that they occupy. Speaking a variety of languages,
they are encouraged by the authorities to maintain if not
strengthen their cultural and linguistic identities.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
square miles
