Demography, population growth, and population policy in China: a brief history from 1940 to the present
Chu, D.S.
Chinese Sociology and Anthropology 16(3-4): 1-42
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0009-4625 PMID: 12314766 Document Number: 422083
For some 3 decades after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Chinese studies have had to life with the paradoxical situation in which the abundance of population on the mainland, ever increasing in number predictably and inexorably, was couples with a scarcity of data about the nature and patterns of demographic change, ever harder to come by. As increasing amounts of new demographic data from China, sometimes produced jointly between Chinese and foreign researchers, become available, it is clear that previous methods, technics, and styles of analyses habituated by 3 decades of minimal data from China will become inadequate and obsolete. In 1957 Ma Yinchu put forth 3 main proposals for population control: 1) to conduct another national census to gain more demographic statistics, 2) to advocate widespread public education to inform people of the importance and practical knowledge of birth control combined with propaganda on the disadvantages of early marriages and the benefits of late marriage, and 3) family planning, by popular use of contraception, is the most effective method for population control. It is argued that 1) the years 1950-1958 consisted of a period of fermentation and preparation, 2) the post-leap years, 1959-1965, constituted a period of trial implementation of emerging policies, 3) 1966-1971 was an uncontrolled period, and 4) only the years after 1971 may be viewed as a period during which serious implementation took place. Overall, the selections in this volume are intended to inform both China scholars and social scientists interested in recent developments in Chinese population studies.