Deliberate Birth Control Under a High-Fertility Regime: Reproductive Behavior in China Before 1970

Over the past 30 years some of the most rapid fertility declines have occurred in populations of Chinese origin even in Chinas rural population. While socioeconomic development may have provoked and supported fertility decline in Singapore Hong Kong Taiwan and some of mainland Chinas major cities it cannot explain comparable declines in Chinese populations in Malaysia Indonesia and the Philippines where levels of socioeconomic development are generally lower. Furthermore the family planning programs and government involvement in those programs are very different from those in China. In all of these populations people of Chinese origin appear to have been more willing to control their fertility than people of other ethnic origins. People have widely believed that until Chinas nationwide family planning campaign was launched in the early 1970s the Chinese preferred to have as many children as possible. The author analyzed data from Chinas 1982 One-per-Thousand-Population Fertility Survey to gain insight into why marital fertility rates were relatively low among the Chinese even before Chinas recent fertility decline. Analysis of the data indicate that a considerable number of people deliberately controlled their fertility such that couples who already had both sons and daughters tended to prolong their birth intervals and to stop having children at relatively younger ages. The evidence suggests that the traditional Chinese culture may not have been as pronatalist as people have commonly assumed.