A Study of Factors Contributing to Fertility Decline in China :

An Analysis of the Regional Fertility and Its Relating Socio-economic Factors in 1981-1982

Abstract

A cross national areal analysis of fertility and its relating socio-economic factors of the People's Republic of China in 1981-1982 revealed following findings. 1. Simple correlation showed the areal relationship between fertility and the selected socio-economic factors : the higher the level of?gmodernization" was or the lower the ratio of minority nationalities was, the lower the level of fertility was. 2. The multiple regression analysis and the path analysis showed the causal relationship to fertility, of the ratio of minority nationalities, the ratio of primary industrial population, and the ratio of women educated at junior high school level or above. This meant that "modernization" like improvement of women education level had played a certain role in fertility decline in modern China. 3. As a considerable part of fertility reducing effect of the ratio of minority nationalities and some part of the ratio of primary industrial population could be regarded as reflection of population policy, this cross-section analysis proved the considerable contribution of Chiness population policy to the dramatic fertility decline, that we had previously proved by time trend analysis. And this analysis also suggested that the fertility decline in China was probably accelerated by the combination of "modernization" with population policy.