The rural Chinese fertility transition: A report from Shifang Xian, Sichuan

Summary

Rural China has experienced a rapid fertility decline, but little is known about its causes. This paper reports on the fertility decline in one rural commune of Sichuan Province, based on a sample survey of commune households. Two major events have marked the recent demographic history of the commune and rural China as a whole: the famine of 1959-61, and the fertility translation of the 1970s. The commune experienced a rapid mortality decline in the 1950s and improvements in levels of education, but the decline of fertility was a direct result of government-sponsored programmes to limit births, which in Sichuan have relied heavily on sterilization. About one-quarter of the decline in rural total fertility is attributable to the policy of promoting later marriage.

I am grateful to the Sichuan University Institute for Population Research, the Shifang Xian People's Government, Nanquan Commune, and the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China; to John Knodel for his advice in the development of the paper, and to J. Michael Coble for his skilful programming. John Aird, Pi-chao Chen, Kenneth Lieberthal, Martin Whyte, and R. Bin Wong offered helpful comments. The paper was written during my tenure as ACLS/Mellon Fellow for Chinese Studies. An earlier version was presented at the Workshop on Fertility in the People's Republic of China, Princeton, October 6 8, 1983, sponsored by the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies of the ACLSISSRC.

I am grateful to the Sichuan University Institute for Population Research, the Shifang Xian People's Government, Nanquan Commune, and the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China; to John Knodel for his advice in the development of the paper, and to J. Michael Coble for his skilful programming. John Aird, Pi-chao Chen, Kenneth Lieberthal, Martin Whyte, and R. Bin Wong offered helpful comments. The paper was written during my tenure as ACLS/Mellon Fellow for Chinese Studies. An earlier version was presented at the Workshop on Fertility in the People's Republic of China, Princeton, October 6 8, 1983, sponsored by the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies of the ACLSISSRC.

Notes

I am grateful to the Sichuan University Institute for Population Research, the Shifang Xian People's Government, Nanquan Commune, and the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China; to John Knodel for his advice in the development of the paper, and to J. Michael Coble for his skilful programming. John Aird, Pi-chao Chen, Kenneth Lieberthal, Martin Whyte, and R. Bin Wong offered helpful comments. The paper was written during my tenure as ACLS/Mellon Fellow for Chinese Studies. An earlier version was presented at the Workshop on Fertility in the People's Republic of China, Princeton, October 6 8, 1983, sponsored by the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies of the ACLSISSRC.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

W. R. Lavely

Mellon Assistant Professor of Sociology and Research Associate of the Population Studies Center, University of Michigan