Fertility control in historical China revisited: New methods for an old debate

We revisit the debate over the deliberate control of reproduction in historical China through a reanalysis of data from the Qing (1644–1911) 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 the 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.