Fertility control in China's past

摘要

In an article published in this journal in 1997, drawing on data from China's 1982 One-per-Thousand-PopuIation Fertility Survey, I argued that the highfertility regime existing before China's nationwide family planning campaign was introduced could have involved deliberate fertility control. James Lee, Feng Wang, and Cameron Campbell reached a similar conclusion (Wang, Lee, and Campbell 1995; Lee and Campbell 1997; Lee and Wang 1999). Such claims challenge the widespread belief that historically theChinese did not control their reproduction and wanted as many children, sons in particular, as possible.