Local Variations of Fertility in Taiwan

Abstract

Taiwan has attracted a considerable amount of demographic interest in recent years because of a marked decline of fertility since 1956. In this paper the authors utilize data from the household registration system to analyse variations of fertility among 292 local administrative areas in 1961. The study reveals a strong negative correlation between total fertility and a series of indicators of social development and communication. Most of the variation in fertility is accounted for by differences in the fertility of married women aged over 30 and in the age at marriage. The decline of total fertility is accounted for primarily by a reduction of the marital fertility of women over 30. The adoption of family limitation was by no means confined to urban centres, but apparently originated there and spread rapidly to small towns and rural areas.

Determinants of human population growth

“…The negative relationship between density and fertility also has been observed for smaller units, i.e. Ohio counties in 1850 (Leet 1977), townships in Taiwan (Collver et al 1967) and rural areas in Mexico (Hicks 1974). Hermalin & Lavely (1979) described the evolution of Taiwan's agriculture and fertility from a variety of sources using historical information and data, and concluded that the observations were reasonably consistent with theories of rural fertility that propose tenure and inheritance, land availability and capital-output ratios as crucial variables.…”