Descendants over 300years: Marital fertility in five lineages in Qing China

This paper studies the marital fertility—broadly defined as the ratio of live births to married women—of five Chinese lineages since the 17th century, mainly in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). The results demonstrate a unique pattern of Chinese marital fertility by exploiting new genealogical data and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Australian economic history review 2023-07, Vol.63 (2), p.200-224
Main Author: Hu, Sijie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
17th century
Births
Descendants
Fertility
Genealogy
Parity
Qing Dynasty
Spacing
Wisdom
Women
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper studies the marital fertility—broadly defined as the ratio of live births to married women—of five Chinese lineages since the 17th century, mainly in the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). The results demonstrate a unique pattern of Chinese marital fertility by exploiting new genealogical data and studying more than 50,000 individuals from five lineages. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the marital fertility rates in the period were moderate. On the other hand, in line with the classic ideas, this paper finds no clear indication of two fertility controls within marriages, parity‐dependent early stopping and longer spacing.
ISSN:2832-157X
DOI:10.1111/aehr.12269