John S. Aird

Slaughter of the Innocents: Coercive Birth Control in China.

This book documents the human suffering caused by Chinas effort to control its population growth. It tells how government policy has encouraged extreme measures, including forced sterilizations and abortions, even when it publicly condemns them. The author offers documentation from Chinese sources. Because of the one-child policy for example, the male-female balance has been threatened, as peasants, fearful of not having a son to support them in old age, kill thier female babies.

The Preliminary Results of China's 1982 Census

A selection of the preliminary data from the 1982 census of China is presented together with a critical review of the census as a whole. Topics covered include urban population growth sex ratios minorities education and literacy and vital rates. Selected data from the censuses of 1953 and 1964 are also provided. Consideration is given to the quality of the total population figures the quality of registration data the relationship between the census and the registration records and efforts to carry out post-enumeration surveys. (ANNOTATION)

The Preparations for China's 1982 Census

Chinas third national census, taken as of 00:00 hours 1 July 1982, presumably counted more than one billion people. This census is of enormous importance not only for Chinese statistics but for world demography, because it may resolve at last the perennial doubts about the size of Chinas population. It will also provide many kinds of demographic data not now available from any other source in China and add greatly to the national stock of statistics. The data will support a tremendous upsurge in demographic analysis and serve as a base for future sample surveys. They will have many immediate practical applications in planning and administration. Assuming that the central instructions have been generally observed, the census will do much to enhance Chinas statistical credibility throughout the world.

Recent Provincial Population Figures

Since September 1976 new provincial population figures have been appearing in news items from the Peoples Republic of China, most of which are much larger than those previously available for the same provinces. The figures seem to point to a new order of magnitude for the total population of China that is well above most current estimates.

Population Growth: Evidence and Interpretation

A quarter of the human race resides in Communist China the largest population under a single authority in the world and it has been growing. No one is likely to quarrel with that statement. But there are differences of opinion over just how large the population of China is and how rapid its rate of growth. This article will not attempt to review the technical aspects of these differences or to set one view against another but will try to indicate what the range of opinion is how the differences arise why they cannot presently be resolved and what they mean for those who wish to use Chinese population data. First we put forward one central precept: that there is no such thing as evidence apart from interpretation. These are not discrete segments of the epistemological process. The definition of what constitutes evidence is itself an act of interpretation the perception of evidence is invariably selective and the context which gives evidence its meaning and salience is almost wholly a matter of interpretation. There is nothing particularly regrettable in this so long as the users of evidence are conscious of the degree to which interpretation is operating and of the assumptions under which it operates. (excerpt)