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One Quarter of Humanity : Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000
One Quarter of Humanity Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities 17002000 Author:James Z. Lee, Feng Wang 2000 Allan Sharlin Memorial Award of the Social Science History Association 2000 Otis Dudley Duncan Award of the American Sociological Association Malthus described a China in which early and universal marriage ensured high fertility and therefore high mortality. He contrasted this with Western Europe, where marriage occurred late an... more »d was far from universal, resulting in lower fertility and higher demographic responsiveness to economic circumstances. In reality, James Lee and Wang Feng argue, there has been effective regulation of population growth in China—primarily as a consequence of collective intervention. This collective culture underlies four distinctive features of the Chinese demographic pattern—high rates of female infanticide, low rates of male marriage, low rates of marital fertility, and high rates of adoption—that Lee and Wang trace from 1700 to today. These and other distinctive features of the Chinese demographic and social system, they argue, led to a demographic transition in China different from the one that took place in the West. "I congratulate the authors … This is one of the best contributions to Chinese social and economic history we have seen in a long time." —Peter C. Perdue, Journal of Asian Studies« less