Chinese Historical Microdemography

Using local studies to answer global questions, this compilation from eight scholars takes on traditional notions concerning historical Chinese population trends. Provoking rather than defining, these studies challenge some of the prevailing theories on demographic rates and family structure in late imperial China; they challenge the ideas that the Chinese were a low-fertility population and that population growth in the late imperial period was interrupted by severe mortality crises.

Using local and primary materials - genealogies, epitaphs, and household registers - this collection examines and explores the important issues of fertility, mortality, family structure, and migration patterns. With the family-level data from those unique sources, this book investigates and illuminates the demographic processes behind late imperial China's population growth.