Lineage Populations And Socio-economic Changes Since The Middle Qing Dynasty

Since the age of Malthus, it has been widely believed that the Chinese people in traditional China preferred to have children as many as possible, and there is no intentional birth control in China until 1970's. This study, by analyzing the production and lifestyle changes reflected in the Que Family Tree and Shicang instruments, and by exploring people's demographic behavior choices under the background of the Economic model, reveals a kind of non-Malthusian, and very modern fertility pattern in ancient China.This study indicates that the Que's family could adjust their fertility behaviors consciously according to the social-economic changes for the purpose of maintaining a certain quality of life. This shows in vast China, perhaps there was indeed the so-called "binge" fertility existed, but meanwhile, the very modern fertility patterns just like Que's clan had existed as well. Then, this study, by combining the land fragmentation and the population processes, reveals how the population was becoming saturated along with land fragmentation, and argues the population would become saturated relative to the limited resources under the tradition of property equipartition among all the offspring, even if there were conscious birth control existing.Thus, in the natural state of this case, merely birth control could not solve population pressure problem fundamentally, and only the advanced development of economy maybe the fundamental solution.