Population and Economy in Early Modern China

1. Originality of Wang and Lee’s argument on population and economic in early modern China. • 1. China’s population grew faster than world average, 500 – 1750 (and scarcely fell behind 1750-2000), but slower than Western Europe • 2. At the same time, China avoided a Malthusian crisis—availability of food and standards of living rose • 3. China’s strange preventive checks (which Malthus & others have failed to appreciate) made the difference: • A. Early female marriage, but little remarriage • B. Male celibacy & minor marriage • C. Birth control within marriage • D. Female infanticide • E. Fictive kinship • Is the argument convincing? (more on next slide)

2. Taiping Rebellion, 1851-1865. • Wang Shih-to, a Taiping captive, innocent victim, observed in his diary: “The harm of over-population is that people are forced to plant cereals on mountain tops and to reclaim sandbanks and islets. All the ancient forestry of Szechwan has been cut down and the virgin timberland of the aboriginal regions turned into farmland. Yet there is still not enough for everybody. This proves that the resources of Heaven and Earth are exhausted.”

3. Is their argument (#3—previous slide) of China’s preventive check convincing? Demographic dynamics of early modern China were strikingly different from Western Europe • A. Early female marriage, but little remarriage • B. Male celibacy & minor marriage • C. Birth control within marriage • Weakest evidence: was “lower” fertility real or can it be explained by omission of births, particularly of females? • D. Female infanticide • E. Fictive kinship (adoption) • Is the unique Chinese pattern a confirmation of Malthus’s positive check? or the preventive check (as Lee and Wang argue)?

4. MalthusSixth: Chapter XII in paragraph I.XII.12 “The extraordinary encouragements that have been given to marriage, which have caused the immense produce of the country to be divided into very small shares, and have consequently rendered China more populous, in proportion to its means of subsistence, than perhaps any other country in the world.”

5. First, a sketch of China’s population history

6. 500-1750: Chinese pop. grew faster than world pop. (Lee & Wang, p. 6) China

7. “China” has many regions;and diverse growth rates (1776-1990), p. 117.

8. “May the people be peaceful and the country prosper.”

9. The 4 distinctive aspects of the Chinese (historical) demographic system (p. 7-9) • 1. Mortality: female infanticide was an important regulator—not famine (nor is infanticide a Malthusian positive check). • 2. A gender imbalanced marriage market (a “marriage squeeze”): too many males, too few females. Females married early and universally; males late and many not at all • 3. “Low level of fertility within marriage (much lower than in Western Europe). Chinese TMFR (6 children) was lower than Western Europe (7.5-9); but TFRs were about the same. • 4. Fictive kinship (adoption)—a socially constructed means of beating the demographic lottery (lack of heir)

10. Chinese pop. “explosion”, 1700-1950-2000 (Lee & Wang, p. 28)

11. Woman spinning cotton on a rude machine, while watching her son (1865)—Boserupian innovation?

12. 1930-1990: per capita grain production grew faster than population, p. 30

13. Was rising heights of Chinese males an indication of rising standard of living? (p. 33)

14. Lee & Wang’s model of Chinese demographic dynamics, endogenous restraints (p. 106):

15. Chinese demographic system was far more calculating than Malthus (& others) have thought • Roots stretch back 1,000 or more years • Multiple conscious checks • Typically, avoided the Malthusian “positive” check through endogenous restraints (p. 106): • Early female marriage, hi male celibacy, minor marriage, little-daughter-in-law marriage, polygyny as serial monogamy • Little remarriage • Birth control within marriage: delayed 1st birth, stopped bearing sooner, abstained from procreation • Female infanticide was widely used when “passion between the sexes” got out of control—reduced family size, controlled gender • Fictive kinship—insurance for lack of male heir

16. Exogenous restraints: rise in grain prices (p. 111) increased marital restraint, infanticide, etc.

17. Chinese demographic system, 18th –20th centuries, responsive to economic conditions, 116

18. Famine and Chinese population growth: the positive check • Peasant rebellions, 1625-1650: “It is impossible to estimate even approximately the number of people who perished directly in the two decades of peasant ward and indirectly from famine, pestilence, and economic dislocation.” • Real peace did not return until the 1680s.

19. Now, let’s examine each element of their argument A-E

20. Is their argument of China’s preventive check convincing? Let’s begin with “A”. • A. Early female marriage, but little remarriage • B. Male celibacy & minor marriage • C. Birth control within marriage • Weakest evidence: was “lower” fertility real or can it be explained by omission of births, particularly of females? • D. Female infanticide • E. Fictive kinship (adoption) • Is the unique Chinese pattern a confirmation of Malthus’s positive check? or the preventive check (as Lee and Wang argue)?

21. A. Marriage restraint #1:Female age at marriage age was below 20 until the 1980s(p. 67)

22. Bride being transported to wedding ceremony • Contracting parties were the fathers (or patriarchical stand-ins)—consulting couple’s wishes was not required. • Private marriage rites: transporting bride to her new husband’s home, where the couple would bow silently before his family’s ancestral altar. • Marriages rites symbolized not free will, but rather submission of maturing children to family roles and filial duty.

23. Rush to marry females, while males had to wait (p. 73)

24. -1900: 96% of females married by age 30; after 1900: 98-99% married by 30 (p. 68)

25. % Never-married females was substantially lower in China than in Europe, 1800 (p. 66) Western Europe China

26. B. Males married later than females (but 6-10 years younger than European males, p. 72)

27. But for males, by age 35, the % married was about the same in China and Europe (1800, p. 69) Western Europe China

28. Mar. restraint #2: wife and concubine (sisters) contemplate suicide upon the death of their noble husband

29. Widowers (males) remarried in large numbers, but few widows remarried (p. 74)

30. C. Marital restraint #3: East Asian fertility was scarcely half that of Europeans, 1600-1800 (p. 87) Western Europe East Asia

31. Chinese total marital fertility was 2 kids below the norm--lower yet given early marriage (p. 85)

32. Polygynous men extended their reproductive spans, but fertility was low compared to Mormons (1700-1840, p. 77)

33. Chinese patriarch (1875) & family:4 adult women and two young sons

34. D. Female infanticide in early modern China: three points • 1. Widespread: in late 18th century rose as high as 1/10 of daughters born to imperial lineage. • 2. The higher the birth order the less likely the daughter would live • 3. Girls born to heads of households (and their sons) were also less likely to live

35. Female Infanticide in Chinese population history • 17th c: a magistrate proposed that any well-to-do family that had reared two daughters was to be awarded “a wooden table on which the virtue of the family would be extolled.”

36. Father and mother cared for by faithful son and daughter-in-law

37. Infant mortality of girls was 2-3X as great as boys in late 18th century (Beijing, p. 46)

38. Middle-class family with 2 sons: family planning in early modern China?

39. At the same time, child mortality declined greatly for both sexes (Beijing, p. 46)

40. Female infant mortality jumped to 2.5 times male for 1760-1820 (p. 48)

41. At the same time female child mortality shrank to half that of males (p. 49)

42. 1/10 of daughters born into imperial lineage were victims of infanticide, 1760-1820 (p. 50)

43. Female Infanticide in Chinese population history • 1847: “...The first female birth may sometimes be salvaged with effort, but the subsequent births are usually drowned. There are even those who drown every female baby without keeping any...This is because the poor worry about daily sustenance...and the rich are concerned over future dowries.”

44. Wealthy doctor with four children

45. At higher birth orders for every female baby, there were 3-4 males (p. 59)

46. Older daughter, 3 younger sons

47. Female Infanticide • 1864: “The rustic people of Hupei and parts of Hunan customarily rear two sons and one daughter at the most. Any further birth is often disposed of. The custom is particularly against female infants. This is why in this area women are proportionately scarce and single unmarried men abound. When a baby girl is born, she is usually killed by drowning. Her parents, of course, cannot bear this, but none the less they close their eyes and turn their backs, while continuing to immerse her in the water tub until she ceases to utter her feeble cries and dies.”

48. Female infanticide: heads and sons of heads had twice as many son’s as daughters, p. 60.

49. E. Fictive kin: “high” adoption rates: 5%+ (p. 108)

50. Chinese demographic system, 18th –20th centuries, responsive to economic conditions, 116