Fertility control in historical China revisited: New methods for an old debate

Abstract

We revisit the debate over the deliberate control of reproduction in historical China through a reanalysis of data from the Qing (1644–1911) Imperial Lineage that accounts for physiological or other differences between couples that affected their chances of having children. Even though studies of contemporary and historical European fertility suggest that failing to control for such differences may obscure evidence of parity-specific control, previous studies of historical Chinese fertility have not accounted for them. We show that in the Lineage, failure to account for such differences leads the association between the number of children already born and the chances of having another birth to appear to be positive, but that once they are accounted for properly, the relationship is inverted. Based on this, we conclude that lineage members adjusted their reproductive behavior based on the number of children. We also show that the sex composition and survival of previous births affected reproductive behavior. We conclude by suggesting that one way forward in the ongoing debate over fertility control in historical China is through application of such methods to other datasets and comparison of results. We also suggest that progress in the debate over fertility in historical China has been impeded by confusion over the definition of fertility control, so that some behaviors are recognized as fertility control by some parties in the debate but not others.

Keywords:

• Fertility
• Reproduction
• China
• Demography
• Qing dynasty
• Family
• Lineage
• Genealogy

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the session “Fertility Control in History”, International Union for the Scientific Study of Population XXV International Population Conference, Tours, France, July 2005. We are grateful to the discussant and members of the audience for the comments and suggestions. While writing this paper, the authors received support from fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. The authors also acknowledge support for their research from NICHD 1R01HD045695-A2 (James Lee PI), “Demographic Responses to Community and Family Context."

Notes

1 Tel.:[phone] (office); fax:[phone].

2 Based on authors’ calculations. The remaining 16.6% either did not marry, or married but were childless, resulting in the omission of their wives from the records.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

James Z. Lee1

1 Tel.:[phone] (office); fax:[phone].