Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 July 2008
Fertility trends for Korean populations in Japan and Korea and for Japanese have been examinated, with special reference to the Fire-Horse or White-Horse year, 1966.
Koreans in Japan and the Japanese showed a remarkable drop in crude birth rates and a sharp increase in stillbirth rates in 1966, while Koreans in Korea showed only a steady decline in crude birth rate.
It was concluded that the Japanese folk superstition of Hinoe-Uma influenced the crude birth rates and stillbirth rates of both Japanese and Koreans in Japan 1966 and that the fertility behaviour of these Koreans had come to resemble that of the Japanese through the effect of environment factors in Japanese society.