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"Mainland China and Taiwan have both successfully undergone remarkable transitions from high to low fertility in recent decades. Comparing the transitions of the two Chinese populations brings out striking similarities in the changes in age patterns of fertility, but distinctive contrasts between the trends and speed of declines.... An overview of the history of population dynamics in the past 500 years reaffirms the assertion that fertility and mortality rates in ancient China were primarily reflections of biological responses to population pressure on resources. The results of the regression analysis of this study demonstrates that this density-dependent relationship has gradually vanished as the deliberate control of fertility prevails in contemporary China and Taiwan. The prevalence of fertility control is in large part attributable in Taiwan to the rational response of the population to changes in economic and social conditions that favor fewer children while the size of families in China is largely prescribed by the government there." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

The decline in mortality in Taiwan since World War II is analyzed using life tables. "Special features of the research include (1) a phase-of-life-specific, rather than an age-specific, analysis of mortality, and (2) the use of measures based upon person-years of life in phase intervals, rather than survival rates or expectation of life at given ages. The empirical results suggest that the mortality decline can be described as a two-stage process: an initial stage of substantial improvement in life expectancy between 1950 and 1965, and a final stage of slow gain in life expectancy since 1965." Age and sex variations in mortality and differing rates of mortality decline are noted. Implications of increased longevity for economic and social programs are also considered. (summary in ENG), (excerpt)

Urbanization trends in the Lower Yangtze region of China from 1500 to 1900 are examined. Data are from a variety of sources, including genealogies, local records, and other literature. An attempt is made to analyze the demographic characteristics of the urban population. "The demographic characteristics in respect to marriage, fertility and mortality found from the genealogies do reveal that there were dissimilarities between the rural and urban dwelling populations. Moreover, findings related to migration tend to support that rural to urban migration was an important factor that speeded up urbanization in the Lower Yangtze Region." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"The purpose of the paper is to examine the nature and the structure of elderly women's dependency [in Taiwan] and the underlying socio-cultural-political forces. From the social constructive perspective, we focused on three constructive forces--the Chinese patriarchal/patrilocal family system, the gender role, and the state policy on elderly welfare. Three types of dependency--economic dependency, dependency for personal and health care, and living arrangement--were examined." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"This paper extends research on the difference in ageing factors between Taipei City and Taiwan's rural area in terms of the changes in fertility, mortality, and migration rates.... The analysis--based on data collected from 1968-1993 demographic data in Taiwan-Fukien Demographic Fact Book...provides strong evidence that population processes (fertility, mortality, and migration) have different influences on the population ageing of Tapei City and Taiwan's rural area." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"This paper studies the inter- and intra-provincial migration patterns, major streams, the demographic characteristics of migrants and their reasons based on the 1990 100% China census. Under the government efforts [to move] to a market economy, the household registration system gradually loses its function. The social and economic impacts of [the] significant size of floating population [in] cities are addressed." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"Based on the cohort component projection, this paper simulates the effects of fertility compression on birth sequence and age composition in Taiwan, and explores the implications for social welfare. As a first step, we fix the fertility schedule on the age pattern of 1956 while leaving the TFR to shift as it was, [and] simulate the single year of age population groups from 1956 to 1992.... We subsequently assumed a fixed age pattern of fertility, a compressed pattern and an expanded pattern in a projection of five year...age groups from 1997 to 2097." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"In this paper we employ family status life tables to assess the effects of demographic processes on family composition and to reveal trends in elderly living arrangements [in Taiwan]. We found that further declining fertility and changing nuptiality are responsible for the prevalence of nuclear family composition. [The] increasing proportion of nuclear families indicates a decreasing probability [of] elderly parents living with their married children. In addition, according to the current nuptiality trends, the increasing proportion of women of all ages who remain [unmarried] will strengthen its effects on family composition in the near future." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"This paper applies the multiple-decrement life table to the analysis of mortality and self-reported disability [for Taiwan], annually from 1986 until 1989.... It was found that during this period of time, the shifts in 'mortality' and 'disability' curves conform to the compression hypothesis. The area in between the two curves [has] shrunk in the 4 year period.... The sex differential in disability has been examined. It is concluded that though at the younger ages women tend to spend less person-years in disability, the situation is quite different at older ages. Women tend to have greater chance [of] and longer duration suffering from disability at old age than men." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"In this paper, we will focus on [population growth, birth, and marriage rates in Taiwan] and explore [them] in terms of the time series model. Furthermore, the comparison and analysis will be made utilizing [the] univariate ARIMA model, transfer function model and multivariate ARIMA model accordingly. The seasonal factor will also be considered. Lastly, [projections] will be made on the short term growth rate of these three indexes, and we will also estimate the monthly sum of population of the next two years in Taiwan." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

"This paper [tests] both Clark's negative exponential model and Newling's quadratic exponential model [using data for] population densities in districts of Kaohsiung Metropolis [Taiwan]. It proposes four theoretical amendments and supplements to the population density function and the related theories." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)

The quality of children has mostly been discussed in so far as it can affect fertility. The sex of children is a particularly important subject in this context. Because a child's sex is stochastically determined, Ben-Porath and Welch used the household production approach to identify risky decision points. The purpose of this paper is twofold. One is to simplify Ben-Porath's and Welch's model. The other is to use KAP data in Taiwan to examine the causes of preferring to have at least 1 boy and to test in what direction and the degree to which such preferences affect fertility. The results can be summarized as follows: 1) preferring to have at least 1 boy is significant in Taiwan; 2) the data support both the assumption of inelastic demand and mild learning; 3) concerning the dummy variable for the existence of at least 1 boy preference, it can be shown that the regression coefficients for each of family structure, wife's education, and husband's occupation were statistically significant at the .01 significance level; and 4) when the impact of "at least 1 boy preference" on completed family size is concerned, the regression coefficient for the existence of at least 1 boy preference is positive as expected and also the most significant variable included.

The author discusses urbanization in the People's Republic of China and problems in data analysis "due to the lack of standardized and well-defined terms for the urban settlements and urban population on the mainland. This paper clarifies the relationship between geographic units and demographic data, identifies the major types of urban population and their characteristics, explains the reasons for the differing levels of urbanization revealed in various data sources, and presents a comprehensive data series on mainland China's urbanization that best approximates reality." (SUMMARY IN ENG), (excerpt)