Campbell Cameron D, Lee James Z
Department of Sociology, 264 Haines Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA,
Hist Fam. 2010 Oct 29;15(4):370-385. doi: 10.1016/j.hisfam.2010.09.003.
We revisit the debate over deliberate control of reproduction in historical China through a reanalysis of data from the Qing (1644-911) Imperial Lineage that accounts for physiological or other differences between couples that affected their chances of having children. Even though studies of contemporary and historical European fertility suggest that failing to control for such differences may obscure evidence of parity-specific control, previous studies of historical Chinese fertility have not accounted for them. We show that in the Lineage, failure to account for such differences leads the association between number of children already born and the chances of having another birth to appear to be positive, but that once they are accounted for properly, the relationship is inverted. Based on this, we conclude that lineage members adjusted their reproductive behavior based on the number of children. We also show that the sex composition and survival of previous births affected reproductive behavior. We conclude by suggesting that one way forward in the ongoing debate over fertility control in historical China is through application of such methods to other datasets and comparison of results. We also suggest that progress in the debate over fertility in historical China has been impeded by confusion over the definition of fertility control, so that some behaviors are recognized as fertility control by some parties in the debate but not others.
我们通过对清代（1644 - 1911年）皇室族谱数据的重新分析，重新审视了中国历史上关于有意识控制生育的争论。此次分析考虑了夫妻之间生理或其他差异对生育几率的影响。尽管对当代和历史欧洲生育率的研究表明，未能控制这些差异可能会掩盖特定胎次控制的证据，但以往对中国历史生育率的研究并未考虑这些因素。我们发现，在族谱中，若不考虑这些差异，已生育子女数量与再次生育几率之间的关联似乎呈正向，但一旦恰当考虑这些差异，这种关系就会反转。基于此，我们得出结论，族谱成员会根据子女数量调整生育行为。我们还表明，前胎的性别构成和存活情况会影响生育行为。我们最后建议，在关于中国历史上生育控制的持续争论中，一种推进方式是将此类方法应用于其他数据集并比较结果。我们还指出，中国历史上生育问题争论的进展受到生育控制定义混乱的阻碍，以至于在争论中一些行为被部分人视为生育控制，而另一些人则不这样认为。
