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Exploring the patterns of population change under low fertility is a historical mission for demographic research in the 21st century. Taking Shanghai as an example, this paper discusses the new patterns and characteristics of people’s childbearing intention and behavior under low fertility settings. The results show that Shanghai, as a typical society with ultra-low fertility, people’s childbearing intention and behavior demonstrate the characteristics such as “downward inconsistency” between childbearing intention and childbearing behavior, “convergence” of childbearing intention and childbearing behavior between different sub-groups, “inversion” in childbearing intention and childbearing behavior with education and income, and the “decoupling” between marriage and childbearing. The childbearing intention and behavior of low fertility society as seen in the case of Shanghai show the patterns as somehow different from what was observed in a high fertility society. It suggests that many of the childbearing patterns shown in the high-fertility era may not necessarily be applicable in low fertility settings, and urges more research to be carried out in this regard.

This commentary is intended to take China as a case to discuss the mission of the family planning program under low fertility scenario. After a brief review of the initiation of family planning program in the 1970s, as well as the reorientation of family planning program since ICPD in 1994, it will focus on the new mission for the family planning program under low fertility scenario in the twenty-first century, in particular concerning the issue of induced abortion among the others. Given the enormous evidence of unmet needs in reproductive health as identified in the discussion, it is argued that family planning programmes are in fact even more needed than ever before under low-fertility scenario, and should not be abandoned but strengthened, which clearly has nothing to do to call back to the program for population control in the 1970s–1980s, and nor even go back to the program for “two reorientations” in the 1990s, but to aim to serving the people to fulfill their reproductive health and reproductive rights in light of ICPD and SDGs, and to become truly integral component of “Healthy China 2030” Strategy.

The present review is the first to be conducted since the adoption of UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; it examines the implementation of the PoA/ICPD in China since 1994 and its contributions to the achievement of the SDGs in China in the areas of population and development, gender equality, and health improvement. The review demonstrated that China has made tremendous progress in implementing the principles of the PoA in its national context over the past 25 years since ICPD in Cairo in 1994. Still, the ICPD agenda remains unfinished in some respects and further efforts are required, particularly given the changing situation in China.

This paper uses a cross-temporal meta-analysis to summarize information about the ideal number of children, gender composition, and timing of childbirths during the years 1980–2015 in China. This allows a comparison between ideas about the ideal number of children and actual childbearing behavior. The results show that fertility and the ideal number of children both decreased, but that fertility was higher than the ideal number of children before 1990, and that fertility was lower than the ideal number of children thereafter. Gender preference weakened; however, the preference for sons decreased slowly. The timing of childbearing became significantly later over the study period, while the ideal age of childbearing remained relatively stable. The findings provide evidence to aid understanding of the changes in childbearing in China.

As the world’s largest population, the total fertility rate (TFR) of China is of global significance. Furthermore, the introduction of recent reforms designed to lessen restrictions on childbearing have received wide attention. As well as outlining the fertility rate in China as derived from the 2015 1% sample census, in this short paper we seek to explore the impact of the 2013 reforms to fertility policy which allowed millions of eligible couples to bear a second child. We performed standard demographic analysis on the 2015 1% sample census to calculate both TFR and parity-specific fertility rates for both the total population and specific sub-groups. The overall national TFR from the census was calculated to be 1.047 (down from 1.188 in 2010). TFR in urban areas was 0.914 compared to 1.265 in rural areas. TFR among migrant women was 0.896 compared to 1.115 for non-migrants. While a modest increase in second-births can be identified, a decline in first birth rates offsets it. Even allowing for a generous margin of error, China’s fertility rates appear to be extremely low and declining further. The impact of the recent reforms appears muted, especially in the face of declining first birth rates. The TFRs as calculated from the mini-census would be the lowest national rates in the world. Further research is required to triangulate these findings from other sources. The impact of the two-child policy may be muted.

During the 1950s and 1960s, China’s total fertility rate (TFR) was at a level of around 5 to 6 children per woman (National Bureau of Statistics, PRC 2005). As a response to the rapid population gr...

Starting on January 1, 2016, all Chinese couples are allowed to have two children. This marks the end of China's one-child policy, which has restricted the majority of Chinese families to only one child for the last 35 years. Yet, China's policy change came at least a decade later than it should have. The costly lessons to be learned are not only in politics and public policymaking, but also in how parts of the academic community informed and misinformed public policymaking.

one of the main puzzles of modern population and social history is why, among all countries confronting rapid population growth in the second half of the twentieth century, China chose to adopt an extreme measure of birth control known as the one-child policy. a related question is why such a policy, acknowledged to have many undesirable consequences, has been retained for so long, even beyond the period of time anticipated by its creators. with the world’s population growth rate now at half its historical peak level and with nearly half of the world’s population living in countries with fertility below replacement level, we can look back at the role politics played in formulating, implementing, and reformulating policies aimed at slowing population growth (demeny and mcnicoll 2006; robinson and ross 2007; demeny 2011). in this context, an examination of China’s unprecedented government intervention in reproduction offers valuable lessons in appreciating the role of politics in the global effort of birth control in the twentieth century. aside from the rise and fall of Communism, family planning programs along with the Green revolution could be considered two of the most consequential social experiments of the twentieth century. these two experiments differ, however, in both content and approach. the Green revolution was aimed at feeding the population, while family planning programs were designed to curtail its growth. the Green revolution was technological, economic, and global, while family planning programs were social, political, and often country specific. nowhere in the world did politics and policies figure more prominently in the effort to control population growth than in China. the policy of al

Starting on January 1, 2016, all Chinese couples are allowed to have two children. This marks the end of China's one-child policy, which has restricted the majority of Chinese families to only one child for the last 35 years. Yet, China's policy change came at least a decade later than it should have. The costly lessons to be learned are not only in politics and public policymaking, but also in how parts of the academic community informed and misinformed public policymaking.

The release of the results of the 6th National Population Census conducted in 2010 and the availability of the 2012 revision of World Population Prospect published by the United Nations provide an excellent opportunity to examine the population aging situation in China. This chapter presents the trends in population aging in China in terms of proportion of the elderly and the median age of the total population, the dynamics of population aging in terms of its variations across the country and its relation with fertility and migration, as well as the implications for elderly care and the availability of the elderly support in China.

China's 2010 Population Census shows little that was unexpected. Fertility continues to be far below the replacement level even taking into account all the possible ‘statistical errors’. Population...

China currently is the country with the largest population in the world. The Fifth National Population Census in 2000 reports that the total population of mainland China stands at 1.27 billion while the 1 Percent National Population Sample Survey (mini-census) carried out in November 2005 reports the total population to be at 1.31 billion (National Statistics Bureau (NSB) 2006). China is also the country with the most stringent and government-directed family planning programme and fertility policy having experienced a dramatic decline in fertility from 5 to 6 children per woman in the 1950s to less than 2 in recent years. The 2000 census reports Chinas total fertility rate (TFR) to be at 1.4. The rapid changes occurring in Chinas population dynamics call for a review of the fertility transition in China in terms of trends policy and impact. This article will first discuss the population dynamics ongoing in China in terms of growth birth rate and fertility and then examine the fertility policy implemented by the Government of China before exploring the impact of fertility decline in terms of population ageing gender equality sex ratio at birth and labour supply. (excerpt)

After four decades of strict birth control, the rapid growth of China’s population has been substantially curbed. According to official figures, the total fertility rate dropped below the replacement level in the early 1990s, and has continued to decline since then to a level of 1.8 children per woman in the 2000s. But the 2010 population census revealed a much lower figure of 1.2. The authors of this chapter argue that the official figure is an overestimate, and that the 2010 census reflects actual fertility. The chapter first looks at the reasons behind this overestimation. It then examines in more depth recent fertility trends and patterns as they appear from available sources. This is followed by a discussion on the reliability of the 2010 census data, and in particular on the plausibility of widespread underreporting of births, an assumption still largely supported by Chinese officials.

This chapter addressed the patterns of China’s current fertility using data drawn mainly from the 2010 population census. In spite of some remaining uncertainty concerning their accuracy, it appears that all the recent available sources of data nonetheless converge to indicate that China’s fertility dropped below replacement level in the early 1990s, and continued to decline in the 2000s. These converging data therefore challenge the official TFR of 1.8 children per women, regularly used as a reference by Chinese officials.

By 1979, China had begun implementing the so-called one-child policy, which severely restricts couples' childbearing. It is important to understand Chinese women's perceptions of how their lives have been affected by this policy and by the use of family planning.Survey and focus group data collected in 1996 and 1998 from women in three Chinese provinces-Jiangsu, Anhui and Yunnan-were used to examine links connecting family planning and childbearing to women's lives within the family, including their relationships with spouses and other family members, and their opportunities for education, employment and social activities.Women related family planning to the country's economic situation and to their ability to prosper by having fewer children to support. Increased prosperity enabled them to provide for children's education and to build them houses. In Jiangsu, 73-75% of respondents who had had one child were satisfied with their number of children, regardless of sex; in Anhui and Yunnan, 54-58% of women who had one son and no daughter reported being satisfied, compared with 31-50% of women who had one daughter and no sons. The great majority (73-99%) of women in all three provinces who had two children-regardless of sex-were satisfied with their number of children.Few women disputed that women's lives were better now than in the past. China's one-child policy, however, places women-particularly those in rural areas-in a situation where they are pressured by the government's childbearing requirements on one side and by society's preference for sons on the other.