The Rural Chinese Fertility Transition: A Report from Shifang Xian, Sichuan

Abstract

Summary Rural China has experienced a rapid fertility decline, but little is known about its causes. This paper reports on the fertility decline in one rural commune of Sichuan Province, based on a sample survey of commune households. Two major events have marked the recent demographic history of the commune and rural China as a whole: the famine of 1959-61, and the fertility translation of the 1970s. The commune experienced a rapid mortality decline in the 1950s and improvements in levels of education, but the decline of fertility was a direct result of government-sponsored programmes to limit births, which in Sichuan have relied heavily on sterilization. About one-quarter of the decline in rural total fertility is attributable to the policy of promoting later marriage.