People: demographic patterns and policies
Jowett, A.J.
Geography of contemporary China the impact of Deng Xiaoping' s decade: 102-132
1990
Document Number: 376066
The pace of demographic modernization in China is considered to have been most impressive. China currently enjoys advanced levels of demographic development (low death-rate, low birth-rate, long life-expectancy, etc.) at a very early stage of economic development. In terms of a demographic quality-of-life index which combines infant mortality, life-expectancy and literacy, and ranges from zero to 100, China scores 77 in contrast to the 43 of India, the 94 of the USA and a world average of 64. Levels of fertility and life-expectancy are completely out of character with its low level of economic development. Life-expectancy is 15-20 years greater than would be predicted from the country's level of per capita income. Much of the decline in fertility has been brought about by a government with a firm belief in its ability to introduce and maintain the momentum for social change. The one-child policy is certainly one of the most ambitious exercises in social engineering which the world has so far seen.