Lecture 17 - Population in Modern China

Families lived together in traditional China and sons remained on the land; division of family land led to tiny plots and rural poverty. Because labor was so cheap, the country did not urbanize or mechanize. The Communist government started out with a pro-natal stance, but after experiencing the famine of the Great Leap Forward, moved strongly to fertility control. Fertility declined rapidly in the 1970s, but to counter momentum, the One-Child Policy was introduced in 1979-80. Nevertheless, population has now risen to over 1.3 billion. Reading assignment: Berelson, Bernard and Ronald Freedman. "A Study in Fertility Control." Scientific American, 21, pp. 29-37 Nie, Yilin and Robert Wyman. "The One-Child Policy in Shanghai: Acceptance and Internalization." Population and Development Review, 31 (2005), pp. 313-336 Hertsgaard, Mark. "Our Real China Problem." The Atlantic Monthly (November 1997), pp. 1-17 Resources: [[http://oyc.yale.edu/sites/default/files/mcdblecture17notes.pdf|Notes - Lecture 17 [PDF]]]