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OCR for page 71
CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSIONS
The welcome flood of accurate demographic data from China
provides an unusually detailed depiction of an extra-
ordinary population. Being the most populous nation in
the world has not prevented the People's Republic of
China from compressing into a short time very big reduc-
tions in fertility (more than 50 percent in a decade) and
mortality (more than 20 years added to the expectation of
life at birth in about 15 years). The earliest data are
not inconsistent with the fertility (about the same TFR)
and nuptiality (marriage about 1 year later) of tradi-
tional China, as reconstructed from a survey around
1930. The latest data are not inconsistent with some of
the principal demographic characteristics of developed
countries two or three decades ago. The most recent TFR
in China is about the same as in the United States or a
typical population in Western Europe in the 1960s; the
recent average duration of life is not far from that
attained in those populations about 30 years ago. Age at
marriage has also changed from the very early norms
traditional in much of Asia to ages more like those found
in the West.
The rapid changes of fertility, mortality, and nuptial-
ity in China have not been without costs (the excess
mortality and abnormal reduction with subsequent abnormal
recovery in fertility in the "bitter years"). That the
surprisingly rapid changes have also incurred grave
social costs can be inferred from the recent decision to
reduce pressure for late marriage and from the anomalous
high male/female ratio of births of second and higher
order in 1981. The marriage boom of 1981-82 is not the
only obstacle to attaining and maintaining very low
fertility. Further upward pressure on the birth rate in
the late 1980s is built into the age distribution of
71
OCR for page 72
72
China's population. In contrast to the reduced number of
women in their early 20s in 1982 (because of the greatly
reduced birth cohorts for l9S8-61), during the next few
years the much larger birth cohorts of 1963-70 will be in
the normal ages of first marriage and soon thereafter in
the very fertile years following marriage.
Doubtless there will be surprises, setbacks, and
severe social costs among the future developments in the
population of China. The changes will be better under-
stood and the basis for policy sounder if the authorities
continue to monitor the dynamics of the Chinese population
closely and to continue to publish the data they collect.
However, a rich lode of useful information is still to be
extracted from the censuses and the fertility survey.
This report has used only a fraction of the published
data from the survey and has hardly touched the
information contained in the census. Analysis of the
sort attempted here can be extended to a separate
treatment of mortality by sex and to the demography of
various subgroups--the population of provinces, persons
of various social and economic characteristics, etc.
Continued analysis of the data already collected will be
as valuable as the continued compilation of new data.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
rapid changes
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