China’s Changing Population 9780804765701

Citation preview

China's Changing Population

China~s

Changing Population

D~ Judith Banister

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 1987 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Copyright in this work extends only to those parts of it not written as works of the United States Government, namely Chapter 1, pages 12-20 of Chapter 2, pages 78-98 of Chapter 4, and the Index. The interpretations and opinions expressed in this book are those of the author alone, and do not represent the policy of the United States Government or the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Printed in the United States of America Original printing 1987 Last figure below indicates year of this printing: 00

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data appear at the end of the book

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For Kim, Adrian, and Dawn, who made it possible to combine productivity and the fullness of life

Preface

THIS BOOK is an attempt to describe and explain the momentous population changes that have taken place in the People's Republic of China since its founding in 1949. The cut-off point for incorporating newly available information in the analysis was January I 98 5. More current data and sources would perhaps change some small details in the book, but would not substantially alter the assessments and conclusions reached here. In writing this book for a broad audience, the author has excluded some of the detailed descriptions of demographic techniques used, assumptions made, and Sinological fine points dear to the hearts of China scholars and demographers. Where undocumented generalizations are made, they are based on some demographic sophistication and a decade of studying the population of the People's Republic of China. Therefore, though any given assertion might turn out to be incorrect, it is not frivolously made. Readers who may wish to delve more deeply into any particular topic addressed in this book are welcome to write the author in care of Stanford University Press. The book was written over a period of six years while the author was simultaneously fulfilling other job requirements. Several times it was almost in final form, ready to be handed to the eager staff at Stanford Press, when the Chinese government and statistical organizations released thirty years' worth of crucial demographic data that had to be incorporated into the manuscript. The author wishes to thank the unparalleled editor of Stanford Press, J. G. Bell, for his unaccustomed patience in the face of these circumstances beyond our control. Also worthy of note are the editors who monitored and pored over the manuscript for longer than they would have preferred, John Feneron and Andrew L. Alden. The research derives from the author's Ph.D. dissertation for Stanford University, and subsequent research was carried out at the China Branch

VIII

Preface

of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, whose precious library collection and data files are a tribute to the work of the China Branch's resource specialist and translator Florence Yuan. Her thorough search for relevant source materials and highly skilled translation work were crucial to the success of this research effort. The author would also like to thank John Aird for allowing her full use of his research files. The entire manuscript was typed by Andrea Miles, whose excellent and dedicated work was critical for the accuracy of the published book. She also generated most of the tables and graphs by computer. Beverly Honda typed part of an earlier draft. Previous drafts of all or some of the chapters were carefully and critically read by John Aird, Samuel Baum, Arthur Wolf, Eduardo Arriaga, Barbara Torrey, and Haitung King. Their insights helped eliminate many errors, misinterpretations, and confusions in the manuscript. Any problems that remain are the sole responsibility of the author. Computer assistance was provided by Peter Johnson, Peter Way, Eduardo Arriaga, Victoria Ho, Frank Hobbs, and Jack Gibson. The author would also like to thank the East-West Population Institute in Hawaii and the U.S. Bureau of the Census in Washington, D.C., for permitting her to continue work on the book while carrying out her other duties as an employee. Neither organization bears any responsibility for the analysis or conclusions expressed in the book. J.B.

Contents

I.

Introduction

I

2. The Quality of China's Population Data

I2

3. Health and Morbidity 4· Mortality 5. The Setting for Fertility Decline

I2I

6. Late Marriage and Birth Planning 7. The One-Child Family Campaign 8. Fertility

227

9· Population Distribution, Internal Migration, and Ethnic Groups

297

Io. Review and Prospect Appendixes A. Supplementary Data 38 3 B. Glossary of Demographic Terms Abbreviations Notes

399

401

Bibliography 449 Index

473

351

392

Tables and Figures

TABLES

1. 1. Historical Population Estimates, A.D. 2-19 53 2.1. Reconstructed Age-Sex Structure of the 19 53 PRC Census 2.2. Comparison of the Age-Sex Structures of the 19 53 Destabilized Model and the 19 53 Census 2.3. Age-Sex Structure of the 1964 Census 2-4- Intercensal Survival Ratios for Males and Females by Age Group, 1953-64 2.5. Age-Sex Structure of the 1982 PRC Census Sample 2.6. Intercensal Survival Ratios for Males and Females by Age Group, 1964-82 2.7. Comparison of Official Data and Reconstruction of the Size and Sex Structure of the PRC Population, 1949-84 3.1. Crude Male and Female Death Rates by Cause, Rural Survey, 1929-31 3.2. Leading Health Problems in China before 1949 3·3· Public Health and Epidemiology Centers in China, 1947-58 4.1. Reported Crude Death Rates in the PRC, 1949-57 4.2. Reported Crude Male and Female Birth and Death Rates in China, 192o's- 194o's 4·3· Reported Crude Death Rates in the PRC, 1957-83 4+ Reported Male and Female Life Expectancy, 1957-81 4·5· Age-Specific Death Rates for China, 1973-75, from the Cancer Epidemiology Survey 4.6. Unadjusted Life Table for China, 1973-75, from the Cancer Epidemiology Survey 4·7· Adjusted Life Table for China, 1973-75, from the Cancer Epidemiology Survey 4.8. Estimated Life Expectancy in 48 Selected Countries, Early 1970's 4·9· Reported Male and Female Life Expectancy by Province, 1973-75 and 1981

4 24 25 27 30 34 36 42 5I 51 53 79 79 84 86 89 90 91 93 95

Tables and Figures

x1

4.Io. Percentage Differences in the Age-Specific Death Rates

of PRC and Other Life Tables 4· I 1. Reported and Estimated Infant Mortality Rates in Urban Areas, I957-8I 4.I2. Reported and Estimated Infant Mortality Rates in Rural Areas, I957-8I 4.I3. Reported and Adjusted Infant Mortality Rates in the PRC, I973-80 4·I4. Indirect Estimation of Infant Mortality for China, I968-8o 4.I5. Reported Male and Female Infant Mortality Rates in the. PRC and Selected Provinces, I98I 4.I6. The Eight Leading Causes of Death in the PRC by Sex, I973-75 4.I7. The Leading Causes of Death by Age Group, 1973-75 4.I8. Reconstructed Crude Death Rates, Life Expectancy, and Infant Mortality Rates by Sex, I953-84 4.I9. Comparison of Official and Cancer Epidemiology Survey Data on Female Survival Ratios, I964-82 5.1. Literacy and Educational Level of the PRC Population by Sex and Age Group, I982 5.2. School Enrollment by Sex, I982 5-3- Fertility of Women Ages 3 5, 40, and 4 5 by Educational Level and Rural-Urban Residence, 1982 Fertility Survey 6.1. Women's Average Age at First Marriage in Urban and Rural Areas of the PRC, 1950-81 6.2. Contraceptive Mix in Urban and Rural Areas, 1982 6.3. Contraceptive Mix by Age Group, 1982 6-4- Reported IUD Insertions and Removals in the PRC, 197I-82 6. 5. Reported IUD Insertions and Removals in Tianjin Municipality, 1978 6.6. Reported Male and Female Sterilizations in the PRC, I971-82 6. 7. Reported Abortions and Estimated Annual Abortion Ratios in the PRC, I97I-82 7.1. Single-Child Certificate Acceptance Rates in the PRC and Selected Localities, 1979-83 7.2. Contraceptive Mix in the PRC, 1982-83 8.1. Reported Vital Rates and Implied Rates of Natural Increase in the PRC, I949-83 8.2. Total and Age-Specific Fertility Rates in the PRC, 1940-81 8.3. Comparison of Official and Fertility Survey Birth Rates, I949-81 8-4- Total Fertility Rates in Urban and Rural Areas by Birth Order, 1980 and I98I 8.5. Total Fertility Rates in Urban and Rural Areas, I950-81 8.6. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Cities and Counties, 1952-82 8.7. Reported Provincial Total Fertility Rates, Crude Vital Rates, and Births by Parity, I981

97 IOO 104 107 Io8 I09 I II II3 II6 I17 140 141 142 I 56 17I 173 177 177 177 180 188 215 228 230 235 241 243 246 252

XII

Tables and Figures

8.8. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Shanghai Municipality, I 9 so- 8 3 8.9. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Beijing, I949-83 8.Io. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Tianjin Municipality, I949-82 8.I 1. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Jiangsu Province, I 9 54-8 3 8.12. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Shandong Province, I970-83 8.I3. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Shanxi Province, I970-83 8.q. Reported Total Fertility Rates and Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Sichuan Province, I954-83 8.I5. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Henan Province, I954-83 8.I6. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Gansu Province, I949-83 8.I7. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Anhui Province, I949-83 8. I 8. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Guangdong Province, I962-83 8.I9. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Yunnan Province, I957-83 8.20. Reported Crude Birth, Death, and Natural Increase Rates for Guangxi Province, I965-83 9.1. Population Density of the PRC by Province, I982 9.2. Population Growth by Province, I953-82, Adjusted to I982 Boundaries 9·3· Population Growth by Ethnic Group, I953-82 9+ Population of the Largest Cities, I982 9·5· Official Urban Population Totals, I949-83 9.6. Official Urban Population by Province, I964 and I982 IO.I. Computer Reconstruction of the Population Dynamics of the PRC, I949-84 I0.2. Projected Population of the PRC in the Working Ages I5-64, I985-2050 I0.3. Projected Population in the School Ages 5-14, I985-2050 10-4- Projected Elderly Population (Ages 65 and Above) and Dependency Ratios, 1985-2050 A. 1. lntercensal Survival Ratios for Females by Single Years of Age, 1964-82 A.2. lntercensal Survival Ratios for Males by Single Years of Age, 1964-82

2 54 258 260 267 269 27I 274 278 28I 283 285 287 293 298 302 322 327 329 332 352 368 370 372

384 386

Tables and Figures A.3. Corrected Life Tables for Males and Females, I973-75, from the Cancer Epidemiology Survey A+ Corrected and Adjusted Life Tables for Males and Females, I973-75, from the Cancer Epidemiology Survey A.5. Unadjusted Life Tables for Males and Females, I98I A.6. Unadjusted Life Table for Both Sexes, I98I

Xlll

388

FIGURES

2. 1. 2.2. 2.3. 2-42.5. 2.6. 2.7. 6.1. 6.2. 8.1. 8.2. IO.I. I0.2.

Partial Data on Female Age Structure, I 9 53 Census Female Age Structure as Reported, I964 and I982 Censuses Partial Data on Male Age Structure, I953 Census Male Age Structure as Reported, I964 and I982 Censuses Female Population by Five-Year Age Groups, I953 and I964 Censuses Male Population by Five-Year Age Groups, I953 and I964 Censuses Reported Age-Sex Structure from the IO Percent Sample of I 9 8 2 Census Questionnaires Average Age at First Marriage for Women, I950-8I Average Age at First Marriage for Urban and Rural Women, I950-8I Age-Specific Fertility Rates, I955, I970, and I98I Annual Total Fertility Rates, I940-8I Estimated Birth and Death Rates, I949-84 Population Size of the PRC Under Three Projections, I980-2050

22 22 23 23 29 32 35 I 57 I57 232 232 353 367

PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF

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PHILIPPINES

China's Changing Population

1

[]gQ Introduction

THE PEOPLE's REPUBLIC of China (PRC) since its inception has set startling precedents in managing its great and burgeoning population. Some innovative policies have been relatively successful, such as the Chinese government's determination to minimize, control, and channel urbanization. Other pacesetting developments have been China's reduction of deaths from infectious disease, and its delivery of primary health care using paramedics, or "barefoot doctors," as the base of a rural cooperative health system. On the other hand, some population policies have been very unpopular, and a few have been repudiated or quietly reversed. For instance, the government's insistence that young adults put off marriage until age 23 or 25 in rural areas (and even later in the cities) was partly successful but met with much dissatisfaction until the policy was changed in 1981. Similarly, the policy of forcing urban-born city residents to move to rural or remote frontier areas had to be dropped in the late 1970's owing to widespread popular resistance. But these innovations pale before the unprecedented control of fertility (which means actual births rather than fecundity, or potential to bear children) exercised by the PRC's government during the 1970's and early 198o's. China has instituted and sustained the world's first nationwide compulsory family planning program that has lasted more than a few years. During 1975-77, India tried a compulsory sterilization program that provoked popular outrage, helped topple the government of Indira Gandhi, and set back the struggle to control India's population growth. This traumatic experience prompted the generalization in the population field that compulsory family planning is more likely to bring down the government than the birth rate. But whereas India failed, China has succeeded so far in persuading some couples and forcing many others to use birth control techniques and drastically limit their fertility. If a massive

2

Introduction

backlash does not occur, then the world may learn that forced fertility control can rapidly reduce population growth and keep it at a low level, at least in a country that has a highly organized, authoritarian government reaching into local areas. Will the Chinese model of compulsory birth control prompt other countries to abandon the principle that each couple's acceptance of birth control must be completely voluntary? If government control of childbearing continues to work in China, then it is likely that more developing nations will opt for this path. China's government is also the first in the world to attempt to popularize the ideal of a one-child family. Other governments, realizing that the concept of raising only one child is anathema to most couples, have been content to promote the two- or three-child family. In promoting this unpopular one-child policy, the Chinese government has recourse to compulsion to assure compliance. So far no other country has tried imposing such a stringent limit, but the idea of encouraging the one-child family is beginning to catch on elsewhere, for example in Bangladesh, where an Association for the Promotion of the One-Child Family was founded in I98I.r

Given the drastic nature of China's attempts to solve its population problems, one would suppose that these problems are uniquely grave. Indeed, in some ways China's population problems are more serious than those of most other developing nations. In the first place, the People's Republic of China is the world's most populous country: within its borders live over one-fifth of the world's people.* Of the total population in the world's less developed countries, almost one-third resides in China. Whatever population problems China has are magnified by its enormous size. In the second place, China has been blessed with fertile lands and a history of many centuries of highly organized government. This combination favored population growth and resulted in extremely dense settlements on the arable land by the middle of the nineteenth century. Therefore, the PRC upon its founding in 1949 inherited a huge population densely packed in agricultural areas, and the new government needed to immediately increase agricultural production in order to guarantee that these people's basic needs would be met and to raise living standards. *From the seventeenth century onward the island of Taiwan was settled by migrants from China and therefore was considered part of China. But since 1895 it has been politically separate from the mainland, and both have followed separate paths during the twentieth century. Taiwan was controlled and administered by Japan from 1895 to 1945, then given to the Nationalist Chinese government (Guomindang), which was battling the Communist armies for control of the Chinese mainland. The defeated Nationalists fled to Taiwan in 1949 and since then have maintained a separate government. Therefore, all data for Taiwan have been excluded from this study, even though both the government of the PRC and the government of Taiwan agree that Taiwan is part of China.

Introduction

3

Some further historical background information is necessary for an understanding of demographic conditions in China as of I949·

A Brief History of China's Population The Chinese empire took a population count in 2 A.D. and others at irregular intervals thereafter. Table I.I, which traces China's population over the last two millennia, is based on these census and registration counts, adjusted when necessary. 2 A striking feature of China's demographic history is that the population apparently fluctuated between 3 7 and 6o million for a thousand years, showing no consistent trend. The first recorded instance of sustained population growth (averaging an estimated 1.2 percent a year) took place in the last half of the eleventh century under the Song (Sung) Dynasty, but this trend was reversed by subsequent centuries of dynastic struggle, civil war, Mongol invasion, and bubonic plague. Then, starting from the early years of the Ming Dynasty in the late fourteenth century, China experienced six centuries of population growth. Only twice was this growth checked, once because of the fall of the Ming Dynasty in the early seventeenth century, and once during the Taiping Rebellion that hastened the decline of the Qing (Ch'ing) Dynasty in the late nineteenth century. In neither instance are population statistics adequate to document the temporary reversal. The period of most rapid population growth (I749-I85I) saw more than a doubling of China's population in a century. Growth in this period averaged 0.9 percent per year. Population pressure on China's arable land became a matter of official concern during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, prompting several different dynastic efforts to increase food production and feed the growing population. The amount of land under cultivation multiplied about 4· 5 times, high-yielding rice seeds were introduced from abroad, new food crops were imported from the Americas, grain storage was emphasized, and irrigation works were expanded.' The recognition of population problems and the adoption of policies designed to solve them began well before the twentieth century. The century between I85I and I949 was one of societal breakdown, dynastic decline and collapse, imperialist penetration, armed invasion, and civil war. The recorded population grew from about 429.5 million in I8 5 I to 5 82.6 million in I95 3, an annual average population growth rate of only o. 3 percent; in fact, as the I 9 53 census was very likely a more complete count than the I 8 5 I population registration data, the growth rate was probably even lower. To comprehend fully the profound demographic changes that have taken place in the PRC since I949 would require an accurate picture of

TABLE I.I

Historical Population Estimates, A.D. 2-1953

Date

2 88 105 125 140 144 145 146 156 606 705 726 732 734 740 742 754 755 1290 1291 1381 1393 1749 1776 1791 1811 1821 1831 1841 1851 1953

Dynasty

Persons counted

Han Han Han Han Han Han Han Han Han Sui Tang Tang Tang Tang Tang Tang Tang Tang Yuan (Mongol) Yuan Ming Ming Qing Qing Qing Qing Qing Qing Qing Qing PRC

1014 1029 1048 1065 1075 1086 1094 1103 119395"

Dynasty

Song Song Song Song Song Song Song Song S. Song Jin

59,594,978 43,356,367 53,256,229 49,690,789 49,150,220 49,730,550 49,524,183 47,566,772 56,486,856 46,019,956 37,140,000 41,419,712 45,431,265 46,285,161 48,143,609 48,909,800 52,880,488 52,919,309 58,834,711

4.9 5.8 5.8 5.2 5.1 5.0 5.0 5.1 5.3 5.2 6.0 5.9 5.8 5.8 5.7 5.7 5.8 5.9 4.5

59,848,964 59,873,305 60,545,813 177,495,000 268,238,000 304,354,000 358,610,000 355,540,000 395,821,000 413,457,000 431,896,000 582,603,417

4.5 5.6 5.7 176.5 267.0 303.0 357.0 353.7 393.8 411.3 429.5 582.6

counted

Households counted

Recorded persons per household

Adjusted population (millions)

21,996,965 26,054,238 21,730,064 29,077,273 23,807,165 40,072,606 42,566,243 45,981,845 27,845,085 48,490,400

9,055,729 10,562,689 10,723,695 12,904,783 15,684,129 17,957,029 19,120,921 20,524,065 12,302,873 7,223,400

2.4 2.5 2.0 2.3 1.5 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.3 6.7

54.3 63.4 64.3 77.4 94.1 107.7 114.7 123.1

Persons

Date

Adjusted to Implied current persons PRC boundaries per household (millions)

122.3

Introduction

5

China's marriage, fertility, mortality, and migration patterns in the several decades prior to I949· Although no satisfactory benchmark data exist, we do have useful information from one large survey that provides an approximate demographic picture of rural China twenty years before the PRC was founded. During I929- 31, interviewers gathered population data from farm households as part of a survey of land utilization in China. 4 The survey did not cover urban areas or rural families in nonagricultural occupations. The families surveyed thus were not a representative sample of the whole population of China, but detailed tabulations survive from I I9 localities in I6 provinces, containing records of 46,6oi rural agricultural families. A group of demographers at Princeton University who recently reanalyzed the data concluded that Chinese rural farm families in I929-31 had early and universal marriage but only moderate levels of marital fertility. 5 The proportion of people who married was over 99 percent; the average age of women at their first marriage was I 7. 5 years and that of men was 21.3. Such a marriage pattern is found in many Asian populations. The age-specific marital fertility pattern of these farm families followed a standard natural fertility pattern, indicating that they did not practice contraception. Yet the level of fertility was far below the number of births that are theoretically possible with early and universal marriage. The total fertility rate was estimated to be 5. 5 children per woman and the crude birth rate 4I per thousand population, compared to the total fertility rate of Io.8 and the crude birth rate of 55 that have been seen in highfertility populations. (Demographic terms such as "age-specific marital fertility pattern," "natural fertility," "total fertility rate," and "crude birth rate" are defined in the Glossary of Demographic Terms, Appendix B.) Was this moderate fertility level typical of China before I949 or was it unusual in some way? The survey was taken in parts of China that were relatively calm and prosperous, not involved in active warfare, and rather firmly but recently under the control of the Guomindang (Kuomintang) government. Respondents were asked the number of children they had ever borne, so women were being asked about their fertility during the decline and fall of the Qing Dynasty, which ended in I9II, and the cha-

SOURCE OF TABLE I. I:

Durand (I96o). Large-scale migration to Taiwan began in the sixteenth century. Taiwan's population is estimated to have been I million in I749, rising gradually to 3 million in I900. See Taeuber (I944l· Taiwan's estimated population is deducted from Qing Dynasty counts above. Population counts from the Song Dynasty must be adjusted, because only some males were counted, totaling two persons per household. Durand makes the adjustment by assuming 6.o persons per household throughout the Song period, as shown in the table. •1n I 126 the Song Dynasty was pushed to the south by the victory of the Jin Dynasty in the north. The adjusted population total of I22.3 million for II93-95 is an estimate for all China derived from the recorded counts reported here, with an adjusted population total of 73.8 million for the Southern Song. NOTE:

6

Introduction

otic warlord period that followed. It is possible that civil war, food shortages, and other dislocations during the years before I929-3I depressed the fertility of these families. Fertility was probably even lower in places where active warfare or famine were prevalent prior to the survey. But fertility may have been higher in urban areas, among the nonagricultural population, or in more peaceful parts of China. For instance, it was calculated from a I930 Japanese census that rural areas of Manchuria (then a part of the Japanese empire) had a crude birth rate of 47 per thousand population, and a vital registration experiment in a rural area of Jiangsu province recorded a high birth rate of 4 5 per thousand population during I931-35· 6 China's fertility level from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century may have been on average somewhat higher or lower than that found in the I929-31 survey. But a total fertility rate of 5-6 births per woman, corresponding to a crude birth rate just above 40 per thousand population, is a reasonable fertility estimate for traditional Chinese culture. Throughout Chinese history certain customs have kept fertility well below the theoretical maximum. A long period of breastfeeding depressed postpartum fecundity and delayed subsequent births. Sexual taboos lowered coital frequency. Long separations between spouses were considered acceptable. A ban on the remarriage of widows, when men as well as women tended to die young, caused many women to cease childbearing long before their fecundity declined. Although the fertility of the Chinese farm families of I929-31 was moderate in comparison to other non-contracepting populations, estimated mortality was very high. The Princeton group estimated that only about 52 percent of all male deaths and 56 percent of all female deaths were reported; after adjusting the raw data on deaths, they estimated that the expectation of life at birth was only 23.7 years for females and 24.6 years for males. The resulting crude death rate, 4 I. 5 per thousand population, was slightly higher than the crude birth rate. Infant mortality, in particular, was extremely high: it was estimated that some 30 percent of all babies died in their first year. The I929- 3 I rural survey provides the best information available on China's demographic situation early in this century. At least among rural agricultural families, which constituted the great majority of China's families, marriage was universal and early, fertility was moderately high, and mortality at all ages was very high. In I982, China's government carried out a nationwide fertility survey that included asking women up to age 67 about the births they had had during their lives/ Their responses indicated that fertility was slightly depressed in China during the war years I940-45, when the total fertility

Introduction

7

rates were in the range s.o-5.3 births per woman. In the late 1940's, when the Japanese invasion had ended but civil war continued, the rates rebounded to 5. 5-6. r births per woman. These data are consistent with the notion that China's fertility stayed in the range 5-6 births per woman, at least during this century and possibly in other recent centuries. After six centuries of almost uninterrupted population growth, China was the world's most populous nation. For several centuries, increasing population pressure had led to more intensive cultivation and the tilling of marginallands. 8 As late as 1957, a year for which agricultural production data and total population data are available, China's per capita grain supply was good in comparison to most developing countries and approximately matched that of Japan! China's food situation was not desperate. However, the very success of Chinese agriculture in recent centuries had permitted high population density on the arable land. As the most productive land became fully utilized, it was no longer possible to expand the cultivated area enough to provide for the increasing population, as it had been since the fourteenth century. Furthermore, as China approached the limits of traditional agriculture, it became more and more difficult to increase yields through traditional methods. Expensive technological inputs like chemical fertilizer were required. Meanwhile China's population began to grow at an unprecedented rate during the 195o's. The historical relationship between population growth and increasing food production had weakened. No longer did more agricultural labor mean a corresponding increase in food production; instead, China's government discovered, raising food production to pace or overtake population growth became extraordinarily difficult.

International Perspectives on China's Population While in some ways China's population problems may be unusually serious, in others they are wholly typical of those found in many other developing countries since the 1940's. Demographic and related socioeconomic changes in China have had strong parallels elsewhere, notwithstanding China's ancient civilization and its communist government. During the decades after World War II, many poor countries of the world became independent of the colonial powers. China had never been fully colonized, but it had been humiliated and invaded, and its politics and foreign trade had been under foreign influence in the century before 1949. The success of the Chinese communist revolution coincided with similar attempts in many countries to throw off outside influences and chart their own course of development. All of these new governments had the task of establishing their legiti-

8

Introduction

macy. They had the powerful force of nationalism on their side, but in addition they needed to bring tangible benefits to their citizens to foster popular loyalty. Therefore, most developing countries' governments have promoted industrialization and expanded education as key long-term development aims. And in order to directly and quickly enhance the quality of life, they have tried to reduce death rates dramatically and improve the people's health. In the I 94o's and 19 so's, governments were aided in these endeavors by advances in public health and epidemic disease control, spraying of DDT for the control of malaria, the invention of antibiotics, and a host of new preventive and curative medical techniques. Another important factor in reducing mortality was that strong governments were able to suppress much of the internecine warfare and random violence that had been a constant threat to life. In many countries of Asia and Latin America, and in some countries of the Middle East and Africa, crude death rates dropped precipitously during the 195o's and the expectation of life at birth rose significantly. 10 By the period 1960-64, the developing world had achieved an estimated crude death rate of 20 per thousand population per year. 11 This was far below the crude death rate in those areas before World War II, which must have been well over 30 per thousand population. After an initial skepticism, population and health specialists accepted as genuine this mortality decline of unprecedented speed. The same startling mortality decline happened in China. The cessation of civil war and the restoration of civil order combined with immunization programs, massive sanitation campaigns, and epidemic-control measures to produce better mortality conditions than had ever before been achieved in China. In the 195o's it was not easy to foresee that this rapid and worldwide improvement in mortality would bring about explosive population growth rates in the developing world and result in a geometric increase in the world's population. This occurred because people did not immediately comprehend what had happened to mortality and because they found it difficult to change their fertility attitudes and practices instantaneously to adjust to the new mortality situation. By the early 196o's Asia's population was growing at 2.0 percent a year, Africa's at 2.3 percent, and Latin America's at 2.8 percent. 12 During the next decade, 1965-74, slight declines in crude birth rates in some developing regions were offset by continuing declines in crude death rates. The result was nearly steady or even rising rates of natural population increase. 13 The world had a high annual growth rate of r.9-2.o percent during the 1960-74 period, which if continued would double the world's population in 3 5 years. 14 Such rapid population growth neutralized many of the significant gains made by de-

Introduction

9

veloping countries. For example, many countries achieved absolute increases of 15 or even 30 percent in agricultural production between the early 196o's and the early 197o's, but found that their production per capita fell, stayed constant, or rose only imperceptibly. 15 Continuing high fertility combined with declining infant and child mortality also resulted in very young populations with rapidly increasing numbers of children. Providing basic elementary education for all these children has proved an elusive goal in many countries; in some developing nations, educational costs are a greater proportion of the government budget than any other item. Now that large numbers of young people born in the 1950's and 196o's are reaching working and childbearing ages, many developing countries are experiencing rising unemployment, in spite of vigorous development efforts, and are trying to combat the surge of births that these young adults threaten to produce. China also experienced rapid population growth during the 1950's, the 196o's, and the early 197o's. As elsewhere, continued high fertility and declining or low mortality underlay this phenomenon. In China as in other developing areas, rapid population growth strained the agricultural and other parts of the economy, thus dashing hopes for quick per capita economic gains. China has had to divert considerable resources to education of its youth during the last few decades, and the effort has met with some success. Now, however, unemployment and underemployment of young adults are causing dislocations in the economy at the same time the government is challenged with minimizing their fertility in order to control population growth in the next decade. During the 195o's China and India, the world's two most populous countries, first came to realize the danger inherent in high population growth rates and established family planning programs. In the 196o's governments of some other developing nations were able to overcome strong pronatalist tendencies in their popular traditions and introduced programs to encourage family planning. But most governments were slow to grasp the serious problems that rapid population growth was causing in developing nations. Some governments in poor countries did not see a 2 or 3 percent annual population growth rate as a problem, and some still do not. When the United Nations hosted the World Population Conference in 1974, some developing countries scoffed at the idea that rapid population growth was causing them any problems, and China joined them for ideological reasons. 16 They blamed their economic difficulties on imperialism and exploitation. Nevertheless, many leaders of developing nations were made aware of the demographic changes they were experiencing. Since then, quite a few have introduced family planning programs. By 1982, eight years later, 39 developing countries with 78 percent

10

Introduction

of the population of developing areas had an explicit official policy to reduce their population growth rates, and 3 3 countries with another 16 percent of the developing world population officially supported family planning activities, ostensibly for nondemographic reasons. 17 The official encouragement of family planning and the provision of birth control devices do not guarantee a decline in fertility, however. While it was relatively easy to reduce the high death rates in developing countries, traditional high birth rates have been resistant to change. Some countries that introduced family planning programs during the I 9 so's and 196o's still have not reported a significant fertility decline. A few small developing areas did greatly reduce their birth rates and natural population increase rates during the 196o's, in particular Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Mauritius, and some other islands. The most populous developing nations did not register rapid fertility reduction before 1970. Modest fertility declines were achieved during the 197o's in both Indonesia and India, however. 1" Indonesia had had a total fertility rate of s.6 births per woman in 1967-70, which declined to s.2 in 1971-7S and further to 4·7 as of 1977-79· The country's crude birth rate dropped from 41 per thousand population in 1971 to 3 s in 1980, but the natural increase rate did not change because the death rate declined from 18 to 12 during the same period. India had a birth rate decline from about 3 9 per thousand population in 1970 to 3 s in 19 So, but the death rate dropped by 4 per thousand population, leaving the natural increase rate unchanged as in Indonesia. Some populous developing countries, including China, Thailand, Mexico, and Brazil, achieved significant reductions in their population growth rates during the 197o's. 19 Of these, the most pronounced drop was in the People's Republic of China. This book will describe and document the extraordinary fertility decline that has taken place there. It now appears that China is one of the first developing countries to reduce its annual population growth rate to below 1 percent and may be the first to reach a zero growth rate. In outline, China's demographic transition is similar to that in many other parts of the developing world. Rapid mortality decline in the 19 so's was followed by peak population growth rates for two or more decades, and now fertility declines have begun or are beginning in China and elsewhere. Therefore we can go a long way toward understanding China by investigating demographic changes in other areas. But China differs from most other developing areas in some important ways. For example, China's current fertility decline may be more rapid than in any other developing country, or at least any other populous and heavily rural one.

Introduction

II

China's urbanization and internal migration patterns, too, have been distinctive. When demographic trends in the PRC diverge radically from those in most other countries, we must look for explanations in what sets China apart, such as its particular development path or socialist political system. This book is an examination of demographic changes affecting the more than one-fifth of the world's people who live in China. The PRC is in the midst of a rapid demographic transition, the shift from the high fertility and mortality of the past to the low fertility and mortality of the future. Tracing the population changes in China is important if we wish to understand that country at all. Moreover, we cannot ignore China's lessons for other nations. If this most populous country can achieve advanced mortality and fertility conditions while still at a relatively early stage of economic development, perhaps there will be other countries choosing to adopt parts of the Chinese model and adapt these policies to their own national conditions. Finally, if we can ascertain China's demographic trends, we have added the largest missing piece to our knowledge of world population dynamics. That helps us assess the unprecedented global population changes of recent decades, decide the world's present position in its great demographic transition, and better predict its course during the next few decades.

2

[JgQ The Quality of China,s Population Data

A

MAJOR transformation took place in the quality and availability of China's collected demographic data beginning in 1982. For over 30 years after I 949, the population statistics collected were seldom published. The field of demography was taboo, so that important demographic indicators were not measured, there were no representative sample surveys, and weak analyses of population matters were the norm. Now that some crucial demographic data from these three decades have finally been released, it is possible to conclude that some of the collected data were of high quality, while most were imperfect but still usable for analysis of population trends. In I982, China conducted a census that was more comprehensive and carefully planned than the previous two, and began full release of the collected data as soon as feasible. The census was followed by China's first retrospective fertility survey that was reasonably representative of the country as a whole. Again, the collected statistics were published as fast as possible in some detail. Because the field of demography became respectable in China beginning in I978, China's own demographers have recently been allowed to develop their demographic skills and have begun producing good analyses of the collected statistics.

Statistical Trends Since I949 Prior to I 949, statistical data for China above the local level in almost any category were of questionable validity and frequently useless. For the first two years after the founding of the PRC, statistics remained undeveloped. Then in late I 9 52, the State Statistical Bureau (SSB) was established and began to build a modern statistical system in China on the Soviet model. Progress in the gathering of economic and population statistics was good during the First Five-Year Plan period, I952-57. 1 The

The Quality of China's Population Data

13

SSB attempted to build a system of objective statistical reporting in order to monitor and support the growth of the planned economy. By I 9 57, the SSB had achieved centralized control over the quality and supply of important national statistics. But some serious problems remained. First, the SSB excluded statisticians trained before 1949 or educated in the West, exacerbating the critical shortage of competent statistical personnel. Second, the SSB followed a policy of suppressing almost all official data in the name of national security. Third, sampling methods were not applied and most collected statistics depended on reporting from all relevant units. China's statistical system began to disintegrate in early I 9 58 and did not fully recover until over two decades later. Criticism of the SSB's work, requested by its Director in May 1957, soon was violently denounced in a thought-reform campaign, and further suggestions for improving China's statistics were silenced. The statistical system then became one of the many casualties of the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong's campaign to increase production in all sectors of the economy through frenzied escalation of physical labor demanded of the population. It was decided that politics should take command over the statistical reporting system, because figures collected by Communist Party cadres assisted by the masses of people would be more accurate than figures compiled by statistical workers. The result was gross exaggeration of production figures in I 9 58 and breakdown of much statistical reporting for several years. Inflated production and consumption statistics hid the disastrous consequences of the Great Leap Forward's economic policies, lulled national leaders into complacency, and resulted in fatal delays in implementing crisis relief efforts. Statistical operations at all levels were still seriously defective as of !962. After several years of economic crisis and famine, China's government once again tried to build an objective statistical system. In July 196I, professional statisticians were again appointed to head the SSB after a twoyear hiatus. 2 The following 1981 report by the late Chinese economist Sun Yefang provides an unusually candid description of the short-lived statistical reforms of the early 196o's and the chaos that followed: In order to draw a lesson from this experience, which was paid for with a high price of blood, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council made "the decision on consolidating statistics work" in 1962 in accordance with the instructions of Comrade Liu Shaoqi and Comrade Zhou Enlai. It was required that a powerful, centralized, and unified statistics system be set up as quickly as possible.... Comrade Zhou Enlai even added one more point to the "decision": The party and government departments were forbidden to change statistical figures. In this way the statistics system of the whole country was soon

The Quality of China's Population Data consolidated, the state statistics system and methods were better implemented, and the accuracy and speed in gathering statistical figures were substantially raised. Unfortunately, even on the eve of "the Great Cultural Revolution," Comrade Wang Sihua, then the head of the State Statistics Bureau, was being criticized. It was alleged that his carrying out the above-mentioned decision of the party Central Committee and the State Council was the implementing of "a revisionist" line and the "seizing of power from the party," and that he was "asserting his independence"! In those ten chaotic years nearly all statistics organs at different levels throughout the country were disbanded, the staff were transferred, and large quantities of materials were burned. The statistics work of the whole country was suspended for almost three years. It has not yet regained its strength. At present the strength of statistics departments at or above the county level throughout the country is only about 76 percent of that of 1965, and the strength of the State Statistics Bureau is less than that of 1976. The statistics bureaus of many cities and counties have not yet been reestablished. In some counties only two or three people are handling the statistics work of the whole county, and most people's communes in the countryside do not have full-time statistics workers. Therefore problems which exist in varying degrees such as inaccurate statistical figures, incomplete statistical content, unsound statistical methods, low level in statistical analysis, and statistical materials falling short of the demands of the state leadership and economic administration are even more difficult to solve. 3

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that began in I 966 was the most wrenching of a succession of struggles led by Mao Zedong to purify the thoughts and actions of China's people and rectify perceived errors in the direction the country's revolution had taken. Intellectuals and professionals, including statisticians, were politically suspect. Those treated least harshly were merely reassigned from their regular work to a physical labor job for a few years. But many were harassed, attacked, imprisoned, maimed, or murdered. After the death of Mao in late I 976 and the imprisonment of his leading supporters, the "gang of four," intellectual work was slowly revived and increased in status. Statisticians resumed their work and many new statistical personnel were trained, in an attempt to make up for lost decades of statistical development. In general, however, China's statisticians remain cautious about making any political errors in what they say or write, mindful of the decades of vilification to which they and their colleagues have been subjected. They are placed in an awkward role. The political leaders have recognized that statistical concepts and techniques from nonsocialist countries must be introduced, so that China can accurately monitor its progress or lack of progress toward the achievement of its ambitious development goals.• To learn the meaning of these concepts and how to measure and apply them, China's statisticians need to receive training from foreign statisticians and engage in joint research with their colleagues abroad. But China's government

The Quality of China's Population Data

15

warns its skilled personnel in all the social sciences against working closely with foreigners, for fear of the contamination of China's elite by capitalist or democratic ideas. In January 1984 a new national Statistics Law took effect, superseding the "Provisional Regulations for Statistical Work" that had been issued in 1963. 5 The content and emphasis of this law highlight the problems that continue to plague the gathering, reporting, and analysis of economic and social statistics in China. The 1984 Statistics Law strongly concentrates responsibility for the conduct of surveys and collection of all kinds of statistics in the hands of the State Statistical Bureau and its provincial branches. The SSB is ordered to modernize data gathering and data transmission, and to standardize nationwide all the definitions of statistical concepts and indices, the methods of computation, the category classifications, and the survey questionnaire designs. Local and provincial units, as well as other parts of the government, are subject to the supervision of the SSB if they need to conduct surveys and collect statistics, in order to avoid replication and duplication of effort, but especially to stop the previous proliferation of ill-conceived, poorly designed, nonrepresentative sample surveys that were useless for measuring what they were supposed to measure. The Statistics Law also stresses that all statistical positions are to be filled by responsible and qualified people, and that if they need further training, professional study classes should be organized for them. The independence of statistical personnel is emphasized, and all political interference with the work of statisticians and the figures they report is now, for the first time, illegal. Cadres are expressly forbidden to falsify any statistics reported from their unit, a practice that has been common at the local level for decades according to press reports. Local officials are also prohibited from concealing statistics from higher level authorities, resisting the reporting requirements, or intentionally delaying the submission of data. As summarized in the Statistics Law, all government, business, and private organizations are required "to furnish statistical data without exaggeration, concealment, resistance, delay, falsification, or change." There is one aspect of the Statistics Law that will continue to impede the open dissemination of collected statistics. While the law mandates regular publication of statistics, it also forbids the release of any data until political approval has been secured. In practice, the highest levels of China's government have had to give their explicit approval for the release of every national statistical figure in recent decades. The policy that every datum is a state secret until expressly declassified has stopped or greatly delayed the publication of most statistics. In the early 198o's, it appears that the government has been willing to approve the publication of whole

The Quality of China's Population Data

categories of statistics, such as all data from the 1982 population census, thus expediting the dissemination of collected information. But the Statistics Law is stern in its prohibition of the release of any figure without formal approval, which continues to hamper the analytical work, writing, and publication of articles by China's statisticians. For instance, a PRC statistician puzzled by some anomalies in the collected statistics cannot confer with a foreign colleague about how best to resolve the discrepancies and discover the truth behind the problematic figures, if this would require carrying out calculations together on data not approved for release. A statistician who did so would be violating the following stipulations in the 1984 Statistics Law: Article r 3. The State Statistical Bureau and the statistical organs of the people's governments of provinces, autonomous regions, and independent municipalities are to publish their statistics periodically in accordance with state regulations. Statistical data to be published by all areas, departments, and units must be checked and ratified by the statistical organs and the responsible statistical personnel ... and the units must abide by the state-stipulated procedure of requesting approval. Article q. Statistical data involving state secrets must be protected .... Article 25. Administrative disciplinary action is to be taken against those persons in positions of leadership and persons with direct responsibility when one of the following serious violations is committed: ... 6. Publishing statistical data without verification and approval in violation of the stipulations of this law; and 7. Violating the stipulations of this law concerning the protection of secrets.

Population Statistics Though the whole field of statistics was held in some contempt by Maoist leaders, China's government has almost always recognized the practical benefits of knowing how many people China had, who they were, where they were, how many people were entitled to grain or cloth rations, how many births and deaths there were each year, how fast the population was growing, and how fast urbanization was proceeding. In order to discover these basic demographic facts, population censuses were conducted in 1953, 1964, and 1982. More frequently collected statistics were also needed to monitor ongoing population trends. During the 195o's, a population registration system was gradually introduced to record the permanent residence location of people, as well as births and deaths among them. 6 Local political units were supposed to report their total population size and the total number of births and deaths from each calendar year early in the next year. Such data were to be compiled upward by county governments followed by provincial governments, then reported to the central government. At some point in the late 19 so's or

The Quality of China's Population Data

17

the 196o's, these cumulated reports became the basis for China's official figures on its population size and vital rates, but some estimation may always have been necessary to account for local units that did not report. The annual population reporting system has continued to the present. Most of these data, though not without error, can be used to analyze China's population trends, sometimes with adjustment and in some cases without adjustment. But population statistics were so ideologically loaded in the eyes of China's Communist leadership that they were largely unreported between 1959 and 1979. The problem was that the orthodox Marxist ideology inherited by China's leadership insisted that rapid population growth would not interfere with swift increases in popular living standards under socialism/ This dogma was based on the texts of Marx and Engels vehemently denouncing the writings of Thomas Malthus, who had sounded the alarm that continuing population growth would eat up all the surplus that people could produce and keep them in poverty. 8 China's radical leaders inched toward the control of population growth out of obvious necessity, but they were reluctant to abandon the Marxist line on this emotionally charged subject. So they suppressed most statistics that did not show socialist production far outstripping population growth, and those few figures released were presented in the most favorable light possible. During the first decade after the PRC was founded, there were economic and demographic successes to report, and any continuing economic problems could be attributed to conditions inherited from the past. Production had been so depressed by warfare and economic chaos prior to 1949 that the rehabilitation period through 1952 showed impressive gains. The government was proud of the genuine achievements through the end of the First Five-Year Plan in 1957, particularly the rapid industrialization and the sharp mortality decline taking place. Occasional bits of economic and demographic data were therefore released for domestic and foreign consumption. From the r 9 53 census results, the government published China's total population size, provincial and ruralurban population distribution, and some details on the age structure. Later, population totals with urban and rural components for 1949-56 and vital rates for selected years were given out. This period culminated in the 1959 publication of Ten Great Years: Statistics of the Economic and Cultural Achievements of the People's Republic of China. This small volume included some economic data, mostly in graphic form, and some demographic data, such as population totals by province and for major cities as of yearend 19 57. There followed more than a decade of almost complete statistical blackout on population statistics and most economic statistics. The prob-

The Quality of China's Population Data

able reason for the decision to suppress the collected data was that they no longer documented success under socialism. In particular, China's death rate rose sharply and food production declined steeply during the Great Leap Forward crisis. After the worst was over, the national population growth rate was high, making the real economic gains less impressive on a per capita basis. China even hid the fact that it was taking a census in r 964, and only in r 972 was an undated list of provincial population totals published that was later confirmed to be from a r 964 census. As the decade of the 197o's began, one province, one city, one rural people's commune after another began to record low mortality and rapidly declining fertility. As these successes became apparent to the central leadership, tidbits of demographic data from such model localities began to be selectively publicized. For some areas, scattered population figures from particular years in the 196o's were reported along with current data to show progress in controlling population growth. As the decade continued, the volume of published data slowly increased, and little by little the historical picture of demographic change as reflected in the official data began to take shape. During these two decades, until after the 1976 death of Mao Zedong and arrest of the "gang of four," Marxist population orthodoxy was vociferously promoted and defended, even while the government tried to reduce population growth through the family planning program. Any scholar or official who dared mention population growth as a problem was in danger of censure. A highly publicized case was that of Ma Yinchu, President of Beijing University, whose writings on "The New Theory of Population" cost him his position in 1960 and made him the object of attack for a decade and a half. Finally in 1979, at age 98 shortly before his death, Ma received this official apology: "Facts over the past 20 years have proved that his views on the question of population are correct and that the criticisms directed against him are wrong." 9 For this whole period, China's few population specialists were refused access to official population data. Even though some continued to write articles about China's population, they were not allowed to publish their work, and many of these papers were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution of the late 196o's. A Chinese scholarly article described the period 19 57 to 1978 as characterized by an upsurge of leftist ideology which identified the study of population with the propagation of the Malthusian theory of population. Those engaged in population studies were violently attacked and castigated, and many were even labeled rightists. Since then there has been neither a single individual who dared to tackle the study of population nor a single organization devoted to population research. The problems of tabulating the population increase and the ratio between popula-

The Quality of China's Population Data

19

tion increase and economic development were not even included in the agenda of state economic planning. 10 Clinging to Marxist population dogma and suppressing both population statistics and population scholars, while at the same time strongly promoting the control of population growth, led to increasingly awkward official positions in the 197o's. Throughout the 196o's and 197o's, the size of China's population was not divulged from official sources. Whenever a rhetorical population total was called for in a public statement, a severely rounded outdated figure was used. This tactic appeared to be ideologically motivated. For instance, China's official yearend I 972 civilian population size was 867 million, but it was greatly underestimated in the following anti-Malthusian broadcast from 1973: "China's grain output has more than doubled in the past 24 years while population rose a little more than 50 percent. Grain output in 1972 was 240 million tons as against I 10 million tons in I 949· The population in the same period topped 700 million compared with upward of soo million." 11 Until mid-1979, official sources almost always referred to China's population as "8oo million" or "over 8oo million" or "nearly 8oo million," though some sources continued to use "700 million." Meanwhile, the national totals compiled from registration reports but not published were close to or over 900 million people. The reasons for the systematic use of outdated totals are not altogether clear, but the following quotation indicates that the resulting confusion was intentional. In March 1979, Vice-Premier Li Xiannian was asked by a Japanese journalist to clarify the official statistics on China's population. Li answered, "We would like you to use the figure 'some 8oo million.' Our population has not reached I billion.'' 12 Soon thereafter, the veil of secrecy began to be lifted from demographic statistics. In June 1979, the government released its official figures on China's 1978 population size and natural population increase rate. The period since 1979 has been characterized by a rising flood of quantitative and qualitative information that threatens to swamp specialists in China's population. By 1981, not only current data but also retrospective data series were published. As of early 1982, enough of the details of the 1982 census pretests had been published to indicate that for the first time ever the Chinese government was planning to publish most of the results of a census. By late 1983, the government had released 54 tables of data from a ro percent sample tabulation of census questionnaires, several complete series of historical population statistics, and most of the important results from a national fertility survey conducted in late 1982. Under present policy the release of population data is much more open than in former times but still not completely unrestricted. Statistics on some politically sensitive subjects either do not appear or are delayed for a long time. For

20

The Quality of China's Population Data

instance, data on abortions and infant mortality, carefully gathered in the national fertility survey, were not released when other detailed figures on marriage and fertility were published from the survey. Since I 978 China has set up 22 regional centers for demographic research and training and has begun to send students abroad for advanced demographic studies. Gradually, newly trained demographers and statisticians have begun to conduct small surveys and analyze the PRC's collected population data. However, as of this writing, Chinese demographers are not free to privately arrange and conduct joint research projects with foreign demographers without prior approval, and apparently they are not free to publish analyses that challenge established government policy. China's I982 census and national fertility survey ushered in a new era of great attention to the quality and completeness of collected population statistics. The census was meticulously planned and carried out. After decades of poorly designed "surveys" skewed toward progressive localities, the I982 fertility survey was designed to be fully representative of the whole country. These massive population investigations were so conscientiously accomplished that they provide a standard by which to judge the previously collected population statistics. In this chapter the quality of China's population data on age structure, sex ratio, and total population size will be evaluated. Subsequent chapters will assess the quality of data on mortality, fertility, urbanization, and other topics.

Census Data on Age-Sex Structure The PRC has taken three censuses, the latest being that of midyear I982. The belated release of I953 and I964 census data by single year of age and sex, available for the first time in I983, allows a more thorough

analysis of these censuses than was ever before possible. At the end of I983, age structure data also became available from a IO percent sample of I982 census questionnaires. The analysis of age structure is greatly enhanced by accurate age reporting and impeded by age misreporting. The reporting of age in all three of China's censuses appears to have been extraordinarily accurate compared with age data from other countries. Figures 2. I through 2.4 graph the recorded ages of males and females in successive censuses. Each cohort, those persons born in the same year, can be traced from the I 9 53 to the 1964 to the I982 census to see if a surplus or dearth of persons at a particular age in I 9 53 is duplicated when the cohort was eleven years older in 1964 and another eighteen years older in 1982. If so, the aberration is probably genuine, resulting from fertility and mortality fluctuations in the past. If not, then age misreporting in one of the censuses is suspected.

The Quality of China's Population Data

21

In general, age misreporting was a very minor problem in all three censuses, but was slightly more pronounced in 1953 than in I964 or I982. For example, both sexes showed a preference for reporting age I 8 in I953 while avoiding ages I5, I6, and I7. In I964 and I982, no such heaping on age I 8 is visible. Similarly, heaping on age one is apparent, and there is a slight preference for reporting age two as well, for both sexes in I 9 53 but not in the subsequent two censuses. This means that in I 9 53 some parents reported an infant as age one or two instead of its true age of less than twelve months. The likely cause of this error is the traditional Chinese custom of calling a baby age "one" at birth and age "two" at the next New Year. In I953 most of the infants, and in I964 and I982 virtually all of the counted infants, were accurately recorded as age "less than one," a tribute to the elaborate procedures devised for enumerators to change an age as reported in the traditional manner into the corresponding age in complete years of life. In the older ages there were small age misreporting problems in I 9 53. Males disproportionately reported their age as 55 or 6o and females chose to report age 6o or 70 to slight excess. In I964 and I982, even these mild tendencies to misreport age had been overcome. The age reporting graphed in Figures 2.I through 2.4 appears so accurate that the results of historical trends in fertility and infant mortality can be seen. For instance, there was a slight dearth of females ages 4 I and 4 2 in I 9 53, seen again when the same cohorts were ages 52 and 53 in I 964. The deficit of males in the same cohorts can be seen in the age structure of both censuses but is less pronounced than for females.This comparison suggests that China had some reduction in fertility and rise in female infant mortality during the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty and founding of the Republic of China from midyear I9IO to midyear I9I2. There is also a shortage of females ages 26 and 27 in I 9 53 reflected again in I964 when the same cohorts were ages 37 and 38, and duplicated in I982 at ages 55 and 56. The male deficit in those age groups parallels the female very closely in all three censuses, suggesting that there was not a surge of female infanticide or selective neglect of female infants but there was a decline in fertility from midyear I925 to midyear I927, a period of civil disturbances among warlords and the northern expedition of conquest by Chiang Kai-shek's army to unify China under his rule. The single year of age data from the I 9 53 census graphed in Figures 2. I and 2.3 are incomplete in that they add up to 567.4 million of the total census population of 582.6 million on the China mainland. Missing from the single year data are 8.4 million persons "indirectly surveyed" in remote areas, and 6.8 million persons in the military or living in military compounds, the latter group including 5.6 million males and r. 2 million females. 13 In the left half of Table 2. I, reported single year data from the

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