| China, the world's most populous country, has experienced tremendous demographic change over the last three decades. What has been the mechanism for this change? This dissertation examines the spatial relationships between birth rates and economic development at the county level in two Chinese provinces, Jiangsu and Jiangxi. These two provinces were selected because they represent the contrasting conditions evident in China today. Jiangsu, a coastal province, represents the richest, most developed part of China; Jiangxi, an interior province, represents the less wealthy, less developed part of China. Research questions explore the relationship between birth rates and improvements in education, improvements in income, urbanization, and distance from the provincial capital, respectively. Exploring the spatial relationships of these socio-economic variables and birth rates, provides a means to analyze the success of China's population planning programs. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods are utilized such as multi-variate analysis, geographic information systems, and focus groups. Multi-variate analysis reveals weak statistical relationships between the socio-economic variables and birth rates. For example, income changes in Jiangsu have a weak negative correlation with birth rates (i.e., as incomes increase birth rates decrease). Distance from the provincial capital has a weak positive correlation with birth rates (i.e., as distance increases, so, too, do birth rates). Collectively, the statistical analyses reveal, however, that China's demographic transition is heavily influenced by governmental interaction, namely its population policies including the one-child per couple policy. To understand the human dimensions of China's population planning programs, a qualitative research method (i.e., the focus group) is used. Six focus groups were conducted in two Michigan locations (East Lansing and Grand Rapids) in the fall of 2004 with participants who were born in China. Age and gender characteristics were used to organize focus groups and these characteristics had an influence on perceptions about China's population planning programs. The focus group discussions provide Chinese perceptions about China's population planning policies, something that is largely lacking in the literature. Overall, this dissertation represents one more small contribution to the growing collection of scholarship about China and its population issues. |
