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Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982 (1984)

Chapter: 4 Childbearing in China Since 1950

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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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Suggested Citation:"4 Childbearing in China Since 1950." National Research Council. 1984. Rapid Population Change in China, 1952-1982. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/61.
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CHAPTER 4 CHILDBEARING IN CHINA SINCE 195 0 TOTAL FERTILITY RATES The published report on the 1/1,000-sample survey of fertility in 1982 includes data on age-specific fertility rates by single years of age from 1950 through 1981. The published tables also include single-year rates for the rural and urban populations for these years and a separately tabulated set of rates for the total population extending back to 1940. The detailed fertility histories were obtained by interviewing women aged 15-67. Because of the upper age limit, the age-specific fertility rates presented for women aged 49 are derived from actual responses of the women interviewed only for years after 1964, rates for women aged 45 are derived from responses only after 1959, etc. The upper age limit of the women interviewed also means that all rates above age 25 in 1940 were estimated by methods not explicitly described. As noted above, comparison of the annual number of births thus calculated with the annual number from official sources indicates that the official number of births is understated. The comparison also shows sys- tematically lower ratios of official numbers of births to calculated numbers of births for years that have 13 lunar months. It is thus clear that the number of births reported in the fertility survey in those years was too high. Table 5 shows birth rates and total fertility rates (TFRs) based on the estimated annual number of births calculated from the fertility rates reported from the survey. Also shown in Table 5 are birth rates and TFRS adjusted for overstatement of births in years with 13 lunar months and for understatement in other years. If all births were reported by the lunar calendar, 13-month years would have 1.05 times the number of births 46

47 TABLE 5 Birth Rate and Total Fertility Rate Derived from Fertility Survey: China ~ . Unadjusted Ad justeda Birth Rate Birth Rate Year (per 1,000) TFR (per 1,000) TFR . . . 1950 46 e 5 5 ~ 81 41e 3 5 e 93 1951 39 ~ 8 5 ~ 70 40 ~ 6 5 ~ 82 1952 45 ~ 1 6 ~ 47 43 ~ 7 6 ~ 26 1953 42 ~ 2 6 ~ 05 43 ~ 1 6 ~ 17 1954 43.5 6~28 44~4 6~41 1955 42 ~ 7 6 ~ 26 41 ~ 3 6 ~ 06 1956 39 ~ 4 5 ~ 85 40 ~ 2 5 ~ 97 1957 42 ~ 5 6 ~ 41 41 ~ 1 6 ~ 21 1958 36 ~ 9 5 ~ 68 37 ~ 7 5 ~ 80 1959 27 ~ 7 4 ~ 30 28 ~ 3 4 ~ 39 1960 26~0 4~02 25~2 3~89 1961 21.9 3 ~ 29 22 ~ 3 3 ~ 36 1962 40~1 6~02 40~9 6~14 1963 48 ~ 9 7 ~ 50 47 ~ 3 7 ~ 26 1964 39~9 6~18 40~7 6~31 1965 38 ~ 9 6 ~ 08 39 ~ 7 6 ~ 20 1966 39~6 6~26 38~3 6~06 1967 33 ~ 4 5 ~ 31 34 ~ 1 5 ~ 42 1968 40~4 6~45 39~1 6~24 1969 35 ~ 8 5 ~ 72 36 ~ 5 5 ~ 84 1970 36 ~ 5 5 ~ 81 37 ~ 2 5~93 1971 34 ~ 6 5 ~ 44 33 ~ 5 5 ~ 27 1972 31~8 4~98 32~4 5~08 1973 29 ~ 5 4 ~ 54 30.1 4 ~ 63 1974 28~0 4~17 27~1 4~04 1975 24 ~ 8 3 ~ 57 25 ~ 3 3 ~ 64 1976 23 ~ 2 3 ~ 24 22 ~ 5 3 ~ 14 1977 21e 1 2 ~ 84 21e 5 2 ~ 90 1978 20~8 2~72 21~2 2~78 1979 21.6 2 ~ 75 20 ~ 9 2 ~ 66 1980 18~1 2~24 18~5 2~29 1981 21~2 2~63 (21~2) (2~63) 1982 21~3 2~66 (21~3) (2~66) aAdjusted to correct for effect of lunar calendar and for understatement in other years.

48 in a solar calendar year, and 12-month years would have .97 times the number in a solar year. The adjusted birth rates and TFRs are calculated on the assumption that two-thirds of the reported births are based on lunar years: leap-year (13-months) rates were divided by 1.033 and non-leap-year (12-months) rates by 0.98. The unadjusted total fertility rates in Table 5 are taken directly from the report on the fertility survey, which also contains partially estimated TFRS for 1940-49, with an average value of 5.44 for that decade. This rate differs very little from the total fertility rate of 5.50 estimated by Barclay and others (1976) for the Chinese farm population in 1929-31. The total fertility rate from the survey rises to about 6.0 through the 1950s until 1958, when a dramatic decline begins. An increase in fertility from 5.5 to 6.0 as part of the first impact of modernizing forces is not unusual. It frequently occurs because of the diminished effect of various customs and practices that restrict fertility below its potential maximum in almost every less-developed country. These customs and practices, which do not vary according to the number of children already born and hence are not intended to impose a direct limit on the size of the family, include prolonged breastfeeding, periodic separation of spouses because of seasonal migration, prohibition of intercourse during lactation, etc.7 The most striking features of the sequence of TFRS are the dramatic reduction from 1956 to 1961 (the TFR in 1961 is only a little more than half of the TFR in 1957); the recovery in 1962 to a TFR similar to the 1950s; and the unique, very high TFR of 7.5 in 1963. The TFR in the mid-to-late 1960s was comparable to the mid-1950s except for a temporary drop in 1967, coinciding with the Cultural Revolution. A sustained decline began after 1970, reaching a low in 1980 that was more than 60 percent below the level in 1970; there was a modest recovery in 1981, but only to a fertility level still well below half the level in 1970. These episodes of a large reduction, an extraordinary recovery, and a subsequent major decline are analyzed further below. THE EFFECT OF CHANGES IN NUPTIALITY ON THE RATE OF CHILDBEARING Changes in age at marriage have a different effect on fertility in populations in which married couples

49 practice little contraception and therefore have similar age-specific marital fertility rates whatever the age at marriage and in populations in which married couples effectively control fertility and attain fixed targets of completed size of family. In noncontracepting popula- tions, increases in age at marriage reduce the number of children born to each cohort of women by reducing the number of younger women exposed to the risk of child- bearing. The reduced number of younger women who are currently married causes lower fertility in each time period as well as for each cohort. In populations practicing effective contraception, changes in age at marriage alter the timing of births for each cohort of women without necessarily alterina the final average size of family achieved. _ ~ _ , _ _ , A postponement of childbearing caused by later marriage produces a temporary reduction in period fertility even if cohort total fertility is not changed. When age at marriage stops increasing, this temporary depression of fertility ends. The effect of increasing age at marriage on fertility even when each cohort achieves the same family size is not generally noticed nor well understood. Imagine, for example, that all women marry at the mean age of marriage and bear only one child, one year after marriage. Suppose that for a long period the age at marriage is 22 years and that both the total first-marriage rate and the total fertility rate are 1.0. Then suppose that at a certain moment the mean age at marriage rises to 23 years. In the year following this shift, there would be no marriages because the cohort that was 22 in the preceding year would all have already married and the cohort becoming 22 in the given year would not marry until reaching 23 a year later. In the ensuing year there would be no births for a similar reason. So from a one-year increase in age at marriage (and age at childbearing) there would be a loss of a full year's quota of marriages and a full year's quota of births even though the proportion ever marrying and the completed family size for every cohort remained fixed. In a more complex change of the sort that actually occurs, a rise in the mean age at marriage within a period of time means that one year's quota of marriages is lost, not in a single year, but during a scan of several vears. A rise by one year in the mean age of childbearing also means the loss, over a span of years, of one year's quota of births, even though completed size of family of cohorts does not change.

50 The effect of changes in age at marriage on changes in the total fertility rate can be evaluated under two quite different assumptions about the fertility of the married women when age at marriage is changing. One assumption is that the fertility of married women at each age remains constant as age of entry into marriage changes. This assumption is logically tenable if there is very little contraceptive practice. The second assumption is that the fertility of married women at each duration of mar- riage remains fixed, with a duration-specific fertility schedule that declines quite steeply because each marriage cohort is curtailing its childbearing after the early attainment of desired family size. The change in fertility associated with changing nup- tiality in China can be estimated under both of these assumptions. First the effect of changes in age at marriage on total fertility is determined when the schedule of age-specific marital fertility is fixed. The proportion of ever-married women at each age in selected years is combined with the age-specific fertility of the ever-married women in 1956. The age pattern of marital fertility in the 1950s (see below) differs little from the age pattern characteristic of populations that do not deliberately control fertility (do not try to reduce childbearing when desired family size has been reached) by contraception or abortion. The first calculation shows the reduction in the total fertility rate that would have occurred if the virtual absence of contra- ception and abortion of the 1950s had continued (and if there had been no change in factors, such as duration and intensity of breastfeeding, that affect marital fertility in the absence of contraception). The data provided in the report of the 1982 fertility survey are the basis for this calculation. The proportion of ever-married women at each age in each year since 1950 is estimated by the cumulation of first-marriage rates for each cohort (see Table A-4).8 Division of the tabulated overall age- specific fertility rate at a given age by the proportion ever married at that age yields an age-specific fertility rate of ever-married women. The next step is to multiply the proportion of ever-married women at each age in different years by the age-specific ever-married fertility rates of 1956. The results are shown in Table 6. The total fertility rate would have fallen by a little more than 20 percent from 1950 to 1980 and then risen by several percent to 1982 if the ever-married fertility rates of 1956 had been in effect. Most of the decline in

51 TABLE 6 Total Fertility Rate Calculated for Selected Years, from Proportion of Women Ever Married and Age-Specific Marital Fertility Rates, 1956: China Year 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1982 Calculated TRE 5.97 5.87 5.68 5.62 5.42 4.96 4.71 4.88 TFR of 1950=100 100 98.3 95.1 94.1 90.8 83.1 78.9 81.7 total fertility rate would have occurred after 1970, when the greater part of the rise in age at marriage occurred. The TFR in 1980 was 61 percent lower than the TFR in 1950; the decline that would have occurred from changes in marriage alone, with constant marital fertility rates, is thus about one-third of the actual decline. The second calculation of the effects of changing nuptiality is limited to the years after 1970, when the change in nuptiality was greatest and when there was a major increase in the deliberate restriction of marital fertility by contraception and abortion. The rationale of this calculation is different from the first. Duration-specific marital fertility rates have been calculated for 1970, 1977, and 1981 from data in the 1982 fertility survey that give the number of births to women at marriage durations of 0-1, 1-2, . . ., 19-20, and 20+ years in those 3 years and from estimates of the number of ever-married women classified by duration of marriage (Song et al., 1983). The number of women by age in each year~have been determined by intracohort interpolation: multiplication by the proportion ever married provides the number of ever-married women by age, and the distribution of the ever-married at each age by duration can then be ascertained from the sequence of first- marriage rates in the cohort for earlier years and younger ages. (The estimated number of ever-married women by duration of marriage from 1970 to 1982 is shown in Table A-5.) The ratio of births by duration since first marriage to number of ever-married women by duration provides a set of duration-specific ever-married fertility rates for 1970, 1977, and 1981 (see Table A-6). The next step is to assume that the married women in each year from 1970 on were subject to 1981 duration-

52 specific fertility rates. This assumption is based on the hypothesis that women during the 1970s were as effective in limiting marital fertility at every stage of marriage as were women at the corresponding stage of marriage in 1981. Such a hypothesis is acceptable (even as an hypothesis) only when it incorporates a schedule of duration-specific fertility that falls off rapidly after relatively high values at early durations, because only then would it be possible for duration-specific fertility to remain unchanged when mean age at marriage increases. When fertility is little controlled (as in 1956) women marrying at age 25 might have about the same fertility at each duration during the first 10 years of marriage as women marrying at 21, but not in the 20th year, when reduced capacity for reproduction would cause lower fertility among those who had married at 25. In short, the calculation of the births that would have occurred from 1970 to 1981 with the duration- specific fertility rates of 1981 illustrates the change in total fertility rate that would have resulted from changes in age at marriage, even if each cohort had maintained lifetime fertility approximately constant but had shifted the time of childbearing by marrying later. Table 7 shows the results. There were almost 30 million births in 1970; with 1981 duration-specific fertility there would have been only about 16 million. The TFR in 1970 would have been only 3.09 with 1981 duration- specific rates; it was 5.81. Had the rates remained unchanged at the low level, the TFR would have declined from 3.09 in 1970 to a low of 2.41 in 1979 and then risen to 2.85 in 1981. With no change in duration-specific fertility rates (and therefore approximately constant cohort total fertility), there would have been a decline to only 78 percent of the 1970 TFR in 1979 and then a recovery to 92 percent in 1982. The two calculations--with constant age-specific fertility rates (as of 1956) and constant duration- specific rates (as of 1981)--illustrate different sorts of influence that changes in age at marriage can have on overall fertility. The first calculation shows that had there been no increased use of contraception (and no change in "natural" fertility from reduced breastfeeding), the TFR would have fallen by about 20 percent from 1950 to 1980 because rising age at marriage would have reduced the average exposure to married life and the attendant risk of childbearing. The second calculation shows that even with fixed, highly controlled marital fertility in

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54 which childbearing beyond the early durations of marriage is severely limited, the TFR would have declined by about 20 percent from 1970 to 1979 because rising age at mar- riage during these years would have reduced the number of married women at early durations. Recall that the total first-marriage rate was low during most of the 1970s (as low as 0.64) despite the continuation of universal entry into marriage cohort by cohort. The increase in mean age at marriage that was the principal source of low total marriage rates also produced a reduced number of women in the early durations of marriage. The cessation and slight reversal of the increase in age at marriage, plus the marriage boom associated with the new marriage law of 1980, produced a phenomenal increase in the total marriage rate and a commensurate increase in the number of marriages of short duration. A consequence is that a rise in overall fertility by 18 percent (from a TFR of 2.41 in 1979 to one of 2.85 in 1982) would have occurred with constant fertility by duration of marriage. The report of the 1982 fertility survey does not provide a time series of age-specific rates of fertility by order of birth, but it does show such rates for 1980 and 1981. The total first-birth rate (the sum over all childbearing ages of age-specific rates of bearing a first child) rose from 0.869 in 1980 to 1.162 in 1981-- nearly three-fourths of the increase in the total fer- tility rate. (Of the increase in the TFR, 90 percent is in the total first-birth rate plus the total second-birth rate, both increases largely the result of compression in 1981 of first and second births by women at different ages into the same time period because of the marriage boom and the reduction in age at marriage.) Some increase in fertility would occur with constant duration-specific fertility even if age at marriage merely stopped rising. If the continued increase in age at marriage had ceased and not reversed, the total first- marriage rate would have returned to about 1.0; the persistent shortage in the annual number of first marriages caused by rising mean age at marriage would have ended. AGE PATTERNS OF MARITAL FERTILITY One of the benefits of the detailed information that appears in the report of the 1982 fertility survey is the feasibility of calculating age-specific marital fertility schedules. To do so, the proportion of ever-married

55 women by age is determined from the data on first marriages; a fertility schedule of the ever-married women is then obtained by dividing the overall fertility of women at each age by the proportion ever married. Finally, the marital fertility schedule is derived by a further division of the ever-married rate at each age by the estimated proportion of currently married to ever- married women. This last proportion can be estimated as having approximately the same values in different calendar years because of the surprisingly little difference between it in i982 and in the Chinese farm population in 1930. The proprortion of currently married to ever- married women at the two dates are as follows: Age Year 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-44 1982 .986 .977 .960 .933 .888 1929-31 .981 .968 .953 .916 .860 The very slight difference in these ratios despite the very substantial difference in mortality implies that the higher incidence of widowhood at the earlier date must have been offset by a high rate of remarriage of widows. Approximate age-specific marital fertility schedules by single years of age from 20 through 39 have been calculated for selected years. In every year the ratio of currently married to ever-married women was assumed equal to the average of the ratios for 1929-31 and 1982. In Figure 13, marital fertility rates are shown relative to a schedule of "naturals fertility, with the ratio to natural fertility at ages 20-24 set equal to 1.00. The comparison with natural fertility provides indirect evidence of the extent to which marital fertility is affected by deliberate control through the use of contraception and abortion. Louis Henry (1961) was the first to note that the age pattern of marital fertility was similar in different populations in which couples do not practice contraception or take other measures to reduce fertility after a certain family size is reached; he called such fertility "natural." In

56 1 .2 1.1 1.0 0.9 0.8 0-7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 o ILL [~< =~ ~~ ~ 6 it, ·— . . __ 1 970 1961 - 1 980 1 1 1 20 25 30 35 40 AGE FIGURE 13 Ratio of Age-Specific Marital Fertility to Natural Fertility (with ratio at 20-24 set at 1.00), 1956, 1961, 1970, 1975, and 1980: China Figure 13, the calculated marital fertility rates are divided by a set of natural fertility rates, with the two schedules--a schedule for China and an average of natural fertility schedules selected for good quality of data from those cited by Henry (Coale and Trussell, 1974)-- brought to the same average at ages 20-24. In 1956 the ratio of marital fertility to natural fertility remains above 0.9 except for two points that are probably the result of sampling variation or slightly inexact reporting by respondents who were over age 60 in 1982. In 1961 the TFR was only 56 percent of the TFR in 1956; the reduction in marital fertility was large at younger ages (a 34 percent reduction at 20-24) as well as at older ages (a 49 percent reduction at 35-39). To achieve the modestly increased departure as age increases from the low level of natural fertility schedule in 1961 would entail only a modest use of deliberate limitation by older women. Low fertility among young as well as older married women in 1961 is consistent with restriction of child- bearing caused not only by contraception but by social disruption and the famine conditions in 1960. As noted below, a very high peak in the death rate occurred

57 - in 1960, the result of a famine associated with crop failures induced by a combination of chaotic economic conditions, drought, and floods. Famine is known to prevent ovulation and to reduce male libido. Disruption of normal family life while the population was mobilized for various projects and engaged in searches for food, like the direct effects of famine on reproductive ca- pacity, would cause fertility to fall at all ages. The death-rate peak in 1960 implies that 1960 was the worst of the crisis; reduced conceptions in 1960 would produce a very low TFR in 1961. The slightly steeper reduction in marital fertility relative to natural fertility as age increases in 1961 compared with 1956 may have been caused by the greater susceptibility of older women to fertility impairment during a famine. A further indication of a quasi-biological basis for the very low marital fertility in 1961 is the height of the peak in fertility reached in 1963. The TFR of 7.50 in 1963 is well above the highest TFR during the 1950s (6.41 in 1957). The age structure of marital fertility in 1963 is very similar to 1956, but at a much higher level. The 1963/1956 ratio of marital fertility rates by five-year intervals for women aged 20-24 to 35-39 varies only from 1.33 to 1.38. The 1963/1961 ratio of marital fertility rates increases from 2.06 at 20-24 to 2.70 at 35-39, possibly because of the cessation of whatever slight degree of contraceptive practice there may have been in 1960-61 or possibly because the catastrophic situation in 1960-61 impaired the fertility of older women more than the fertility of younger women. Marital fertility that is at least one-third higher in 1963 than in l9S6 at every five-year age interval from 20 to 40 implies a much higher than normal susceptibility to pregnancy. The source of such above-normal susceptibility was doubtless an abnormally low proportion of women who had recently given birth (who experience many months without ovulation if they breast- feed) and also an abnormally high number of newlyweds (the total first-marriage rate in 1962 was 1.19). In sum, the very low fertility of 1961 was probably caused by the disruption of normal married life and by famine-induced subfecundity; the unequaled high fertility of 1963 resulted from the restoration of normal marital life, from an abnormally large number of marriages, and from the unusually small fraction of married women who were infertile because of nursing a recently born infant. The age structure of marital fertility was essentially that of natural fertility, unaffected by

S8 deliberate restriction, in 1956 and again in 1963. At the low point in 1961, marital fertility fell with age slightly more steeply than does natural fertility. This pattern may have resulted either from some practice of folk methods of contraception or abortion or from a greater biological effect of the crisis on older women. In 1970 the decline of marital fertility with age relative to natural fertility closely paralleled the corresponding curve for 1961 (see Figure 13 above); but in 1970 this decline was almost certainly the result of an increase in deliberate control with age and not to the biological factors that may have affected older women disproportionately in 1960-61. In 1975 the steep fall of fertility relative to natural fertility clearly shows the much greater effect of fertility restriction among older women; by 1980 the decline in marital fertility with age is comparable to the structure of marital fertility in highly developed societies with total fertility rates below replacement levels. DIFFERENTIAL FERTILITY Urban/Rural Differences The 1982 sample fertility survey provides annual data on fertility and nuptiality in the detail already described for the rural and urban populations as well as for the total. The TFRs for the rural and urban populations are given in Table 8 and shown graphically in Figure 14. In the early 1950s average overall urban fertility increased relative to rural fertility from about 80 to about 90 percent, and it remained at a constant ratio of about 90 percent until 1959 and 1960; evidently, rural fertility was more affected by the Great Leap Forward than was urban fertility. From 1960 to 1966 the ratio of rural to urban TFR fell to about 50 percent, and since then the ratio has been nearly constant. In absolute terms, rural fertility in 1964 returned (after the crisis deficit and the postcrisis peak) to about the level of the 1950s, while urban fertility barely surpassed its 1957 level even in 1963, fell steeply for a few years after 1963, recovered somewhat in 1968, and then fell at the same relative rate as did rural fertility. The decline of urban fertility from 90 percent of rural fertility in the late 1950s to about 50 percent in the late 1960s (while rural fertility remained little changed) appears to

59 TABLE 8 Total Fertility Rates, Rural and Urban Populations, 1950-81: China Total Fertility Rate Year Rural Urban Urban/Rural 1950 5.963 5.001 .839 1951 5.904 4.719 .799 1952 6.667 5.521 .828 1953 6.183 5.402 .874 1954 6.390 5.732 .897 1955 6.391 5.665 .886 1956 5.974 5.333 .893 1957 6.504 5.943 .914 1958 5.775 5.253 .910 1959 4.323 4.172 .965 1960 3.996 4.057 1.015 1961 3.349 2.982 .890 1962 6.303 4.789 .760 1963 7.784 6.207 .797 1964 6.567 4.395 .669 1965 6.597 3.749 .568 1966 6.958 3.104 .446 1967 5.847 2.905 .497 1968 7.025 3.872 .551 1969 6.263 3.299 .527 1970 6.379 3.267 .512 1971 6.011 2.882 .479 1972 5.503 2.637 .479 1973 5.008 2.387 .477 1974 4.642 1.982 .427 1975 3.951 1.782 .451 1976 3.582 1.608 .449 1977 3.116 1.574 .505 1978 2.968 1.551 .523 1979 3.045 1.373 .451 1980 2.480 1.147 .463 1981 2.910 1.390 .478

60 8 7 LL 6 J J o l _ . 5 4 . · ~ ~ i,;: O ,, 1 1 1 1 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 A ~ ~ A - . . . ~ ·. · . Rural - Urban YEAR FIGURE 14 Total Fertility Rates, Rural and Urban Populations, 1950-81: China conform to the classic picture often ascribed to (but not always followed by) European fertility during the so-called demographic transition: the urban population has a higher age at marriage; it starts deliberate family limitation before the rural population does; and after the transition starts in the rural population, the urban population continues to have lower rates of childbearing. The early timing of the urban decline has a simpler explanation, however: the antinatalist program was initiated earlier and pursued more vigorously in the cities. Age-specific fertility rates of the rural and urban populations in less, 1968, and 1980 are compared in Figure 15. In 195S the difference between rural and urban TFRs is composed almost equally of lower fertility below age 25 in the cities (caused by later marriage) and lower fertility above age 31 in the cities (caused by a modest prevalence of contraception and abortion or possibly by a higher proportion of widows). In 1968, the rural fertility schedule looks much like the schedule in 1955 though slightly higher, except at the younger ages, where slightly later marriage reduced fertility. The early part of the urban schedule in 1968 shows the strong effect of later marriage and the later part the strong

61 0.5 _ 1955 0.4 _ 0.3 _ .. E .j~ I 0.2 _ ./ ~ : :/ w 0.1 I in O ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ IN .. ~ J 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 6 _ AGE US ~ 0.5 - LL 11 0.2 0.1 in LL 0.4 L1J ~ 0.5 J ~ 0.3 LL LL cat c: in UJ 0.4 0.2 0.1 . . ~ ~ fN . 1968 · · . . / ~ .. . / v~ .. : I . 1—;1~ . . . 1 40 45 50 _ , 15 20 25 30 35 AGE 1980 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 AGE FIGURE 15 Age-Specific Fertility Rates, Rural (dotted line) and Urban (solid line) Populations, 1955, 1968, and 1980: China

62 effect of deliberate birth control. By 1980 these effects are evident in the rural fertility schedule but are still stronger for the urban schedule. Han and Minority Group Differences Another major difference in fertility in China is revealed by data on the childbearing rates of the rural Han population (the dominant Chinese ethnic group) and those of the ethnic minorities, with a total population of some 60 million persons (6 percent of the population). (Li et al., 1983). The minorities have been exempt from most of the pressures of the official antinatalist program, are generally more isolated and less educated, have strong pronatalist traditions, and have much higher fertility. In 1981 the TFR of the minority populations was 5.05 compared with 2.76 for the rural Han. The age-specific fertility schedule of the minorities shows the effect of earlier marriage up to age 25 and less effective control of fertility at higher ages (Figure 16). Other Fertility Determinants There are also differences in fertility for women with different levels of education and with differences in occupation. In 1982 the average number of children ever born to women aged 35-49 was 4.74 for illiterate women, 3.81 for women with primary school education, 3.08 for women finishing junior high school, 2.41 for women finishing senior high school, and 1.94 for university- educated women. (These figures, taken from the report of the survey, are subject to the following bias: the women at higher levels of education are more concentrated near age 35 in the 35-49 age interval because of rapid change in education in China; their average parity is lowered by this compositional feature.) At age 50 farmers had an average parity of 5.95, workers of 4.27, and cadres of 3.10 (Li and Zhang, 1983; Zhao and Sun, 1983). CONTRACEPTIVE PRACTICE IN CHINA In a chapter entitled "Birth Control of Women of Reproductive Age" in the special issue of Population and Economics (Qui et al., 1983) devoted to the large-scale

63 0.5 0.3 02 Cay LIJ ,,, 0. 1 6 o ,~,./- 1 15 20 25 30 it' ~ . . . . -. ~ . . 35 40 45 50 AGE FIGURE 16 Age-Specific Fertility Rates, Ethnic Minority Women (solid line) and Rural Han Women (dotted line), 1981: China fertility survey, it is reported that 69.5 percent of married women aged 15-49 were practicing contraception in 1982. Of these, 25 percent used female sterilization, 10 percent male sterilization, 50 percent IUDs, 8 percent the pill, and 6 percent condom and other (Qui et al., 1983). The overall rate of use is not very different from Taiwan (65 percent), Hong Kong (72 percent), or Japan (69 percent), but the use of sterilization was more frequent in China than in those neighboring populations (Population Reference Bureau, 1983).

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The remarkable changes in fertility, nuptiality, and mortality that have occurred in the People's Republic of China from the early 1950s to 1982 are summarized in this report. Data are based largely on the single-year age distributions tabulated in the 1953, 1964, and 1982 censuses of China and a major 1982 fertility survey.

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