Historical demographers generally assume that death statistics collected since the end of 19^<th> century are reliable, given that the death-registration system was well established by the 1890s. In this paper, I challenge this assumption by calculating the fetal death statistics in the early 20^<th> century. Prior to the establishment of the death-registration system, the number of unregistered fetal deaths must have decreased before the number of neonatal deaths incorrectly registered as fetal deaths decreased. During this time lag, the number of registered neonatal deaths should have increased. Therefore, the aforementioned assumption can be confirmed by data reflecting these phenomena. First, based on an analysis of fetal and neonatal death rates from 1899 to 1942,I hypothesised that the number of unregistered fetal deaths decreased to the level at which we could analyse annual trends in fetal death rates only after 1910 rather than in the 1890s. Second, to test the above hypothesis, I calculated the number of neonatal deaths that had been registered as fetal deaths since the 1910s and estimated that unregistered neonatal deaths accounted for 16-20% of the registered fetal deaths that occurred in the early 1910s, 11-15% of those that occurred in the late 1910s, 6-10% of those that occurred in the early 1920s, and around 5% of those that occurred in the mid-1920s.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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In Taiwan, two characteristics of fertility in East Asia, ultra-low fertility and a rapid decrease in fertility rates over a short period of time, can be found. In 2010,Taiwan's total fertility rate (TFR) fell sharply due to the unprecedented low level of 0.895 while both characteristics, ultra-low fertility levels and a rapid decrease in fertility rates, are common in the country's prefectures and large-scale cities as well as throughout all of Taiwan. McDonald (2009) argued that the ultra-low fertility trend in East Asia is fueled by the socioeconomic profiles of institutions related to child-rearing because people of child-rearing age tend to become economically risk-averse due to the competitive nature of labor market deregulation. This study, based on McDonald's view of the economically risk-averse tendency among young people of child-rearing age, aims to explore the effects of determinants on fertility, including policy factors, by utilizing time series data on a regional level. This analysis focuses on the period from 1990 to 2010 when Taiwan's fertility decreased rapidly. Among the supporting policies related to child-rearing, the results showed that the effect of the rate of utilization of child-care centers was not significant while the ratio of public child-care center enrollment to total child-care center enrollment was positive and significant. The former indicates that young people of child-rearing age think their child's generation will also suffer from economic risks and, thus, they become keen on investing in their child's education. This factor results in an abundant supply of costly child education programs and facilities, provided by private child-care centers that are sensitive to market demand. Therefore, this could lead to a greater financial burden on household budgets. On the other hand, the latter implies that child-care services that fully utilize the primary characteristics of a public child-care center, namely providing a less costly and less excessive response to the market mechanism, may be effective options for child-care support. To date, public child-care centers are not popular among Taiwanese citizens because they do not meet the high educational expectations demanded by parents and they conjure a negative image of a child-care center that only serves poor families who can't afford the costly expense of sending their children to private child-care centers. However, if sufficient subsidies are allocated to parents or to private child-care centers, the parent's financial burden of paying for private child-care is expected to be reduced. Additionally, the image of a public child-care center could be improved if parents had the option of choosing another type of public child-care center that could strike a balance between offering sound child-care functions and providing the expected educational functions. Regarding the effect of leave systems, such as maternity leave or child-care leave, the study results also showed positive and significant effects. This means that, especially from the view point of females in the work force, the prevalence of the leave system is expected to reduce the career risks associated with child-bearing and child-rearing; namely, females with children will be able to continue working and develop their careers, even after giving birth.

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