16. Population in Traditional China

Global Problems of Population Growth (MCDB 150)

China's early demographic history is similar to that of Europe; population grows only slowly due to war, disease and Malthusian resource limitation. Later, introduction of American foods allowed cultivated land to expand, but population expanded even more rapidly, leading to an extremely dense, but poor population. During this time, female infanticide was frequent, but almost all surviving girls got married. Within marriage, their fertility rate was much lower than that of their European counterparts. This system compares to the English with a low rate of marriage, but high fertility within marriage.

00:00 - Chapter 1. A Story of the One-Child Policy
10:35 - Chapter 2. Qing's Birth and Childhood
15:49 - Chapter 3. History of Population Growth in China
20:25 - Chapter 4. Demographic Data for China
25:20 - Chapter 5. Why Did China Have High Population Growth?

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Spring 2009.