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  • Title: The fertility of Korean minority women in China: 1950-1985.
    Author: Han J, Cho L, Choe MK, Tuan C.
    Journal: Asia Pac Popul J; 1988 Mar; 3(1):31-54. PubMed ID: 12269186.
    Abstract:
    Korean minority women in China have registered dramatic declines in fertility since 1950. The annual growth rate of the Chinese population averaged 2.1% in the 1964-82 period and that for the Han majority was 2.0%. The growth rates for all other ethnic groups were higher than the national average, except for the Korean minority (1.5%). Between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s the fertility decline was particularly marked among Yanbian Korean women; the total fertility rate dropped from 4.8 in 1965 to 1.9 in 1975. With small fluctuations, fertility has remained at or slightly below replacement level since 1975. The observation that Yanbian Koreans began and completed the fertility transition earlier than the rest of China is puzzling given the fact that government family planning programs have less stringent requirements for minorities. Since 1975, the childbearing of Korean women in China has been virtually limited to ages 20-29 years and there are relatively small differences in fertility for women with different levels of education. It is speculated that the migrant Koreans are a selected group of people who place less value on traditional norms and thus are more receptive to the small family size ideal. The fact that this minority has its own language schools and mass communication systems has meant that new norms adopted by the elite are spread to the rest of the Korean population at a pace faster than that in typical Chinese communities. When China introduced its ambitious national family planning program in the 1970s, the Koreans who had already begun the fertility transition were given the means to complete it at a very rapid pace. Overall, the fertility transition of Yanbian Korean women shows that rapid economic progress is not essential to a rapid decline in fertility if other conditions are favorable.
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