1 For more about the 1/1,000 survey, see Analysis on China's National One-per-Thousand Fertility Sampling Survey (Beijing: China Population Information Centre 1984).

2 The instructions to census enumerators are as follows:

“For the population age 6 and over, fill in the respondent's highest educational attainment or current cultural level at the time of the survey. For the population under 6, leave a blank…

“For those age 6 and over who are illiterate or know fewer than 1,500 characters, who cannot read ordinary books and newspapers and who cannot write simple messages, enumerate as ‘know no characters or know few characters.’ Those who know more than 1,500 characters, who can read ordinary books and newspapers, can write a note, or have attained the standards of [programmes to] eliminate illiteracy, are enumerated as primary.

“Under national regulations, for the population age 12 and over, those enumerated as ‘illiterate or know few characters’ are tabulated as illiterate or semi-literate. For the population age 6 to 11, although some have been enumerated as ‘know no characters or know few characters,’ they will nonetheless not be tabulated as ‘know no characters or know few characters’ (illiterate or semi-literate).”

See Census Enumerator's Handbook, Office of the Sichuan Provincial Population Census Leading Group, 1982, pp. 30–31.

3 Primary education prior to 1949 was six years, on the western model. This was maintained after 1949 although at various times, following the Soviet model, the elementary stage was compressed to five years. The first time was just after 1949 but the curriculum reverted to six years in 1953. The second time was in 1960 (some provinces had already instituted this reform in 1958), but this too was short lived. See Barendsen, Robert D., “Planned reforms in the primary and secondary school system in communist China,” in Fraser, Stewart E.(ed.), Education and Communism in China (Hong Kong: International Studies Group, 1969), p. 153.Google Scholar The third time was in 1966 at the onset of the Cultural Revolution, but the disruption of the educational system meant that the actual number of years spent in school in this period varied. Many were promoted to secondary levels after only two or three years of primary education. Pre-Cultural Revolution examination regimes and curricula were restored in 1977, but six years of primary school was only restored in the years following the 1982 census. See Tuan, Chi-Hsien, Wuxi City and Wuxi County - An Analysis of a Pilot Census (Beijing: New World Press, 1987), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar Thus, both the years of schooling and the quality of education requisite for secondary school status has varied greatly over the period.

4 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), Population Research Centre, Almanac of China's Population 1986 (Beijing: Social Science Press, 1987), pp. 309–404.

5 Evelyn Rawski, Sakakida, Education and Popular Literacy in Ch'ing China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1979).Google Scholar

6 Buck, John Lossing, Land Utilization in China (Nanking: University of Nanking, 1937), p. 373.Google Scholar

7 This time series was created in the following manner. The percentage at time t was subtracted from the percentage at time t-3, and this amount (the percentage change over the previous three years) was divided by 3 to yield an annualized percentage. Three-year periods were used to provide a smoother series. An approximate year was obtained by adding 11 years to birth years for primary education, and 14 years for secondary.

8 World Bank, “China: Issues and prospects in education,” Annex 1 to China: Long-term Development Issues and Options (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 1985), Appendix B, Table 10. According to the bank:

“Intake of new students has declined and dropout rates have gone up during the last four years The transition rate from primary to lower secondary education went down from 83% in 1979 to 65% in 1983. Since available data indicate no major changes in the size of the relevant age group during this period, the decrease must reflect a reduction in the number of primary school graduates applying for further education. The decrease is said to have taken place primarily in rural areas” (ibid. p. 8).

9 Pepper, Suzanne, “Chinese education after Mao: two steps forward, two steps back and back again?”, The China Quarterly, No. 81 (March 1980), pp. 1–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Hua, Ji, “Education in China,” in Xue, Muquiao (ed.), Almanac of China's Economy 1981 (Hong Kong: Modern Cultural Company, Ltd, 1982), p. 747.Google Scholar

11 An example is an article entitled “The problem of rural school dropouts merits attention,” which reports that in Tanshan middle school of Jun County, Hubei, 54 of 236 students had dropped out, “After dropping out, most helped on their family responsibility fields and with household chores, and a few went into commerce.” See “Nongcun xuesheng tuixue wenti ying yinqi zhuyi,” in Zhongguo qingnian bao (China Youth), 9 May 1981. See also Lo, Leslie Nai-Kwai., “The irony of educational reform in China,” China News Analysis 1377, 15 January 1989, pp. 1–9.Google Scholar

12 Skinner, G. William, “Regional urbanization in nineteenth-century China,” in G., William Skinner (ed.), The City in Late Imperial China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977).Google Scholar Skinner's conception has recently been attacked and defended. See Sands, Barbara and Myers, Ramon H., “The spatial approach to Chinese history: a test,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 4 (August 1986), pp. 721–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Little, Daniel and Esherick, Joseph W., “Testing the testers: a reply to Barbara Sands and Ramon Myers' critique of G. William Skinner's regional systems approach to China,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1 (February 1989), pp. 90–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lavely, William R., “The spatial approach to Chinese history: illustrations from North China and the Upper Yangzi,” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1 (February 1989), pp. 100–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 G. William Skinner, “Cities and the hierarchy of local systems,” in G. William Skinner (ed.), The City.

14 See Skinner, G. William, “Rural marketing in China: repression and revival,” The China Quarterly, No. 103 (September 1985), pp. 393–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 We have followed the scheme contained in G. William Skinner, “China's regional systems: a research guide,” unpublished ms, n.d.

16 Data tables are available from the first author on request.

17 Skinner has offered, in an unpublished paper, a more detailed classification of North China which places much of the southern and eastern periphery into the “near periphery,” in contrast to the western periphery which is mainly “far periphery.” See Skinner, G. William, “Social ecology and the forces of repression in North China: a regional-systems framework for analysis,” prepared for the ACLS Workshop on Rebellion and Revolution in North China, Harvard University, 27 July–2 August 1979.Google Scholar

18 North China sample towns are: Hebei Jiaohe Bo, Jiangsu Jianhu Jianhu, Shandong Pingyuan Chengguanbei, Henan Xiangcheng Chengguan.

19 Guangxi males aged 20–24 in 1982 are slightly more likely than Guangdong males to have a secondary education, 80% to 76%; but Guangxi females aged 20–24 are considerably above Guangdong females, 70% to 57% (CASS, Almanac 1986).

20 See Lardy, Nicholas R., “The Chinese economy under stress, 1958–61,” in Roderick, Macfarquhar and Fairbank, John K. (eds.), The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 14 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Peng, Xizhe, “Demographic consequences of the Great Leap Forward,” Population and Development Review, Vol. 13, No. 4 (December 1987), pp. 639–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 These estimates are made under the simple assumption that literacy is achieved in four years of schooling. Under this assumption, a four-year suspension of schooling would affect seven birth cohorts: one would lose four years of school; two would lose three years; two would lose two; and two would lose one year.

22 For a fuller explanation of TDFR, see Coale, Ansley J. and Chen, Sheng Li, “Basic data on the fertility of the provinces of China,” Papers of the East-West Population Institute, No. 104 (Honolulu: East-West Population Institute, 1987).Google Scholar

23 Lavely and Freedman discuss the probability of birth control practice among the better-educated urbanites before the government family planning programmes in “The origins of the Chinese fertility decline,” Demography (forthcoming). For a more detailed discussion of the relationship between education, marriage and fertility, see Freedman, Ronald, Zhenyu, Xiao, Bohua, Li and Lavely, William, “Education and fertility in Sichuan and Liaoning: 1967–70 to 1979–82.” Asia-Pacific Population Journal (ESC'AP), Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 1988), pp. 3–30.Google Scholar