The Changing Population of China - Book Review

Journal of Population Research, Nov, 2000 by Wang Feng

Peng Xizhe and Guo Zhigang (eds), The Changing Population of China. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2000. 291 pp., index.

This volume is a timely and highly informative contribution to the literature on demographic and social changes in China. China's population has been a frequent topic for both academics and the mass media, but until the publication of this important volume, there has been no other single book that offers such a comprehensive yet succinct review of important demographic and social changes in China in the 1990s.

Composed of 19 chapters in a relatively slim volume (less than 300 pages), The Changing Population of China offers straightforward and clear descriptions and analyses on a wide range of topics related to China's demographic change in recent years. Written mostly by leading scholars in their fields in China, the chapters not only cover the conventional demographic subjects, such as fertility, mortality, migration and urbanization, and marriage and the family, they also cover a large number of broad social and economic issues in China. There are chapters on age and sex structure of the population, population aging and old-age security education, urban and rural employment, the female and minority population, health care reform and the environment. The materials included in this volume are so rich that they provide an excellent reference source not only on demographic changes but also on general social changes in recent China.

With the exception of Peng Xizhe's introductory chapter that contains the most basic demographic rates (crude birth and death rates) up to 1997, most chapters dealing with demographic changes are limited to data circa 1990. This is a regrettable limitation for those hoping to find the most recent demographic information on China in this book. This limitation, however, is not due to lack of effort on the authors' part, but rather is indicative of a major downward trend in the collection and publication of high-quality demographic data in China. Unlike the 1980s when a huge volume of high-quality demographic data was collected and released in China, reliable detailed demographic data are becoming increasingly scarce in China during the 1990s. Such a limitation is regrettable not only For scholars doing research but also for those who rely on reliable demographic data for applied social and economic uses.

Readers, however, can find comfort in other chapters with more up-to-date changes. The chapter on family planning programs by Xie Zhenming is an example. Here we not only learn the recent evolution of the family planning program, including the responsibility system since 1991 and the new approach in family planning integrating population control with local economic development since 1995, we are also informed that fertility policies are grouped into four categories across China. There are other interesting facts: that the government expenditure in family planning almost doubled from 1.5 billion Chinese yuan (close to US$200 million) in 1991 to 2.7 billion in 1995. We learn that there are 300,000 officials and workers working in the family planning system, and there are more than 50 million members recruited into local family planning associations. These and other pieces of useful information in the book provide important hints to understanding what is driving the demographic dynamics in China.

Similarly, chapters on employment by Zuo Xuejin, on education and female populations by Peng Xizhe and Tan Lin, and on health care reform and inequality by Tang Shenglan and Wu Zhuochun, all contain data up to the mid- to late-1990s These chapters all provide insightful analyses of the fundamental social changes in China, often taking place as a consequence of the reforms in China's economic and social systems. At the same time when these and other authors present their careful reviews of the policy changes related to these areas, they also assemble basic statistics along with dear interpretations, and in some cases, even carry out projections. These chapters not only serve as brief background papers on these subjects, they can also be used in high school and university classrooms as basic reading materials to learn some facts about China.

In sum, though brief and lacking more in-depth analyses, this is a volume that extends far beyond the narrow confines of demographic change. It is a volume that encompasses almost all important aspects of social and economic change where population plays a direct role: family and household, geographic mobility and distribution, education, employment, and health. It is, therefore, not only an important source book for those who are interested in learning about recent demographic change in China, but also a handy reference to some of the basic features of Chinese population and society.