Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-06T02:22:25.472Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Infanticide in Early Modern Japan? Demography, Culture, and Population Growth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2010

Laurel L. Cornell
Get access

Extract

As Coale notes, over the long run human societies have been successful at maintaining a balance between population growth rates and economic resources. This has not been easy: some societies became extinct through overwhelming mortality or by failing to reproduce themselves, while others have burgeoned and outstripped their territories. Even at the end of the twentieth century, a hundred years after the onset of the demographic transition in Europe which transformed human birth and death rates forever, achieving the balance which creates homeostasis remains problematic. In east Asia alone, while the People's Republic of China is trying to bring the expected number of births per woman below 2.0, Japan is attempting the opposite, to raise the total fertility rate above its current level of 1.6. The same contests are being played out in developing and developed societies throughout the world. Thus creating a balance between birth and death rates and linking it to economic conditions so that a society neither outruns its economic resources nor fails to exploit them is a perduring human problem.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 22 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Atoh, Makoto. 1984. Trends and Differentials in Fertility. In Population of Japan. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Country Monograph Series No. 11, ST/ESCAP/269. Bangkok: United Nations.Google Scholar
Bacon, Alice Mabel. 1902. Japanese Girls and Women. Revised and enlarged edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Bean, Lee L., Mineau, Geraldine R., and Anderton, Douglas L.. 1990. Fertility Change on the American Frontier. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Berkman, Lisa F., and Syme, S. Leonard. 1979. “Social Networks, Host Resistance, and Mortality.” American Journal of Epidemiology 109:186–204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bernier, Bernard. 1975. Breaking the Cosmic Circle: Religion in a Japanese Village. Ithaca, N.Y.: China-Japan Program, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Bledsoe, Caroline H., Hill, Allan G., D'Alessandro, Umberto, and Lagerock, Patricia. 1994. “Constructing Natural Fertility: The Use of Western Contraceptive Technologies in Rural Gambia.” Population and Development Review 20:81–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bongaarts, John. 1980. “Does Malnutrition Affect Fecundity? A Summary of the Evidence.” Science 208(May):564–569.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bongaarts, John, and Greenhalgh, Susan. 1985. “An Alternative to the One-Child Policy in China.” Population and Development Review 11:585–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bongaarts, John, and Potter, Robert G.. 1983. Fertility, Biology and Behavior. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Caldwell, John C., and Caldwell, Pat. 1977. “The Role of Marital Sexual Abstinence in Determining Fertility.” Population Studies 31:193–218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caldwell, John C., Gajanayake, Indra, Caldwell, Bruce, and Caldwell, Pat. 1989. “Is Marriage Delay a Multiphasic Response to Pressures for Fertility Decline? The Case of Sri Lanka.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 51:337–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caldwell, John C., Orubuloye, I. O. and Caldwell, Pat. 1991. “The Destabilization of the Traditional Yoruba Sexual System.” Population and Development Review 17(2):229–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coale, Ansley J. 1986. The Decline of Fertility in Europe since the Eighteenth Century as a Chapter in Human Demographic History. In The Decline of Fertility in Europe, edited by Coale, Ansley J. and Watkins, Susan Cotts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Coale, Ansley J., and Treadway, Roy. 1986. A Summary of the Changing Distribution of Overall Fertility, Marital Fertility, and the Proportion Married in the Provinces of Europe. In The Decline of Fertility in Europe, edited by Coale, Ansley J. and Watkins, Susan Cotts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Cornell, L. L. 1990. “Was ‘Three-and-a-half Lines’ So Bad? Peasant Women and Divorce in Early Modern Japan.” Signs 15(4):710–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornell, L. L., and Hayami, Akira. 1986. “The Shūmon aratame chō: Japan's Population Registers.” Journal of Family History 11:311–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crafts, N. F. R. 1989. “Duration of Marriage, Fertility and Women's Employment Opportunities in England and Wales in 1911.” Population Studies 43:325–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Embree, John F. 1939. Suye Mura. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fruin, W. Mark. 1978. “A Social Geography of Preindustrial Labour Migration in Japan: Tajima and Kurome Villages in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Historical Geography 4(2): 105–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, Ronald. 1983. The Impact of Health and Nutrition on Natural Fertility. In Determinants of Fertility in Developing Countries, edited by Bulatao, Rodolfo A. and Lee, Ronald D.. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Guinnane, Timothy W., Okun, Barbara S., and Trussell, James. 1994. “What Do We Know about the Timing of Fertility Transitions in Europe?” Demography 31(1): 1–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gutmann, Myron P. 1980. War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hane, Mikiso. 1982. Peasants, Rebels, and Outcastes: The Underside of Modern Japan. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Hanley, Susan B. 1983. “A High Standard of Living in Nineteenth-Century Japan: Fact or Fantasy?” Journal of Economic History 43(1):183–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanley, Susan B. 1985. Family and Fertility in Four Tokugawa Villages. In Family and Population in East Asian History, edited by Hanley, Susan B. and Wolf, Arthur P.. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hanley, Susan B. 1987a. “Urban Sanitation in Preindustrial Japan.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18(1):1–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hanley, Susan B. 1987b. “How Well Did the Japanese Live in the Tokugawa Period? A Historian's Reappraisal.” Economic Studies Quarterly 38(4):309–22.Google Scholar
Hanley, Susan B. 1991. Tokugawa Society: Material Culture, Standard of Living, and Lifestyles. In The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 4 edited by Hall, John Whitney. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hanley, Susan B., and Yamamura, Kozo. 1977. Economic and Demographic Change in Preindustrial Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hayami, Akira. 1973. Kinsei nōson no rekishi jinkōgakuteki kenkyū [Historical demographic analysis of villages in early modern Japan]. Tokyo: Toyo keizai shinposha.Google Scholar
Hayami, Akira. 1980. Illegitimacy in Japan. In Bastardy and Its Comparative History, edited by Laslett, Peter, Oosterveen, Karla and Smith, Richard M.. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Hayami, Akira. 1985. Rural Migration and Fertility in Tokugawa Japan: The Village of Nishijo, 1773–1868. In Family and Population in East Asian History, edited by Hanley, Susan B. and Wolf, Arthur P.. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hayami, Akira. 1986. Population Changes. In Japan in Transition from Tokugawa to Meiji, edited by Jansen, Marius B. and Rozman, Gilbert. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hayami, Akira. 1987. “Another Fossa Magna: Proportion Marrying and Age at Marriage in Late Nineteenth-century Japan.” Journal of Family History 12:57–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayami, Akira. 1992. Kinsei Nobi chihō no jinkō, keizai, shakai. [Population, Economy and Society in early modern Japan: A study of the Nobi region.] Tokyo: Sobunsha.Google Scholar
Hayami, , Akira, , and Kito, Hiroshi. 1989. Shomin no rekishi minseigaku [The Historical demography of the common people]. In Kindai seichō no taidō, edited by Shimbo, Hiroshi and Saito, Osamu. Nihon keizai sh 2. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.Google Scholar
Hayami, , Akira, , and Miyamoto, Matao. 1988. Gaisetsu: 17–18 seiki [Introduction: 17th–18th Century]. In Keizai shakai no seiritsu, edited by Hayami, Akira and Miyamoto, Matao. Nihon keizai shi 1. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.Google Scholar
Henry, Louis. 1967. Manuel de démographie historique. Geneva: Librarie Droz.Google Scholar
Honjo, Eijiro. [1935] 1965. The Social and Economic History of Japan. New York: Russell and Russell.Google Scholar
Hu, Yuanreng, and Goldman, Noreen. 1990. “Mortality Differentials by Marital Status: An International Comparison.” Demography 27(2):233–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jannetta, Ann B. 1987. Epidemics and Mortality in Early Modern Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jannetta, Ann B. 1992. “Famine Mortality in Nineteenth-Century Japan: The Evidence from a Temple Death Register.” Population Studies 46(3):427–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jannetta, Ann B., and Preston, Samuel H.. 1991. “Two Centuries of Mortality Change in Central Japan: The Evidence from a Temple Death Register.” Population Studies 45(3): 417–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Japan. Ministry of Health and Welfare. Statistics Bureau. 1989. Vital Statistics 1989 Japan. Tokyo: Koseisho daijin kambo tokei johobu.Google Scholar
Johansson, S. Ryan, and Mosk, Carl. 1987. “Exposure, Resistance and Life Expectancy: Disease and Development during the Economic Development of Japan, 1900–1960.” Population Studies 41:207–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kalland, , Arne, , and Pedersen, Jon. 1984. “Famine and Population in Fukuoka Domain during the Tokugawa Period.” Journal of Japanese Studies 10:31–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinoshita, Futoshi. 1989. “Population and Household Change of a Japanese Village, 1760–1870.” Ph.D. diss., Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kito, Hiroshi. 1983. Nihon 2000-nen no jinkō shi [Two thousand years of Japanese population history]. Kyoto: PHP Books.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, Kazumasa. 1984. Mortality Trends and Differentials. In Population of Japan. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Country Monograph Series No. 11, ST/ESCAP/269. Bangkok: United Nations.Google Scholar
Larsen, Ulla, and Menken, Jane. 1989. “Measuring Sterility from Incomplete Birth Histories.” Demography 26:185–201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levine, Nancy E. 1987. “Differential Child Care in Three Tibetan Communities.” Population and Development Review 13(2):281–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mammo, , Abate, , and Morgan, S. Philip. 1986. “Childlessness in Rural Ethiopia.” Population and Development Review. 12:533–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Massey, Douglas S. 1988. “Economic Development and International Migration.” Population and Development Review 14(3):383–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menken, Jane. 1979. “Seasonal Migration and Seasonal Variation in Fecundability.” Demography 16:103–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Menken, Jane. 1985. “Age and Fertility: How Late Can You Wait?” Demography 22:469–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Menken, , Jane, , Trussell, James, and Watkins, Susan. 1981. “The Nutrition Fertility Link: An Evaluation of the Evidence.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11(3):425–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minami, , Kazuo, . 1978. Bakumatsu Edo shakai no kenkyū [Edo in the late Tokugawa period]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan.Google Scholar
Minami, , Kazuo, . 1984. Kansei yon-nen no shokoku jinkō ni tsuite [The population of the provinces in 1792]. Nihon rekishi 432:42–47.Google Scholar
Morgan, S. Philip. 1991. “Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-century Childlessness.” American Journal of Sociology 97:779–807.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, , Dana, , and Smith, Thomas C.. 1985. Fertility and Mortality in an Outcaste Village in Japan, 1750–1869. In Family and Population in East Asian History, edited by Hanley, Susan B. and Wolf, Arthur P.. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Mosk, Carl. 1983. Patriarchy and Fertility: Japan and Sweden 1880–1960. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Norman, E. H. 1975. Origins of the Modern Japanese State, edited by Dower, John W.. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Omran, Abdel R. 1980. “Epidemiologic Transition in the U.S.” Population Bulletin 32(2):1–45.Google Scholar
Preston, Samuel H., and Haines, Michael R.. 1991. Fatal Years: Child Mortality in Late Nineteenth-century America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riley, James C. 1994. The Health Transition in Western Europe. Manuscript in preparation.Google Scholar
Rindfuss, Ronald R., and Morgan, S. Philip. 1983. “Marriage, Sex, and the First Birth Interval: The Quiet Revolution in Asia.” Population and Development Review 9:259–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rozman, Gilbert. 1973. Urban Networks in Ch'ing China and Tokugawa Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Saito, Osamu. 1987. Shôka no sekai, uradana no sekai [The world of merchants, the world of tenements]. Tokyo: Libro.Google Scholar
Saito, Osamu. 1990. The Changing Structure of Urban Employment and Its Effects on Migration Patterns in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Japan. In Urbanization in History, edited by van der Woude, Ad, Hayami, Akira and de Vries, Jan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Saito, Osamu. 1992. “Infanticide, Fertility and ‘Population Stagnation’: The State of Tokugawa Historical Demography.” Japan Forum 4(2):369–81.Google Scholar
Sansom, G. B. 1943. Japan: A Short Cultural History, rev. ed.New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Sasaki, Yoichiro. 1985. Urban Migration and Fertility in Tokugawa Japan: The City of Takayama, 1773–1871. In Family and Population in East Asian History, edited by Hanley, Susan B. and Wolf, Arthur P.. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sekiyama, Naotaro. [1958] 1985. Kinsei Nihon no jinkō kōzō [The population structure of early modern Japan]. Tokyo: Yoshikawa kobunkan.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. 1989. Conjugal Power in Tokugawa Japanese Families. In Sex and Gender Hierarchies, edited by Miller, Barbara Diane. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Robert J., and Wiswell, Ella Lury. 1982. The Women of Suye Mura. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Thomas C. 1959. The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Thomas C. 1977. Nakahara: Family Farming and Population in a Japanese Village, 1717–1830. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taeuber, Irene B. 1958. The Population of Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Totman, Conrad. 1986. “Tokugawa Peasants: Win, Lose, or Draw?” Monumenta Nipponica 41(4): 457–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1989. Vital Statistics of the United States, 1989. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
van de Walle, Etienne, and Knodel, John. 1980. “Europe's Fertility Transition: New Evidence and Lessons for Today's Developing World.” Population Bulletin 34(6): 1–43.Google ScholarPubMed
van de Walle, Francine. 1986. Infant Mortality and the European Demographic Transition. In The Decline of Fertility in Europe, edited by Coale, Ansley J. and Watkins, Susan Cotts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Walthall, Anne. 1988. “Village Networks: Sōdai and the Sale of Edo Nightsoil.” Monumenta Nipponica 43(3):279–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watkins, , Cotts, Susan, and Menken, Jane. 1985. “Famines in Historical Perspective.” Population and Development Review 11(4):647–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolf, Arthur P., and Hanley, Susan B.. 1985. Introduction to Family and Population in East Asian History, edited by Hanley, Susan B. and Wolf, Arthur P.. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. A., and Schofield, R. S.. 1981. The Population History of England 1541–1871. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Yasukawa, Masaaki, and Keijiro, Hirooka. 1974. “Estimates of the Population Size and of the Birth- and Death-Rates in Japan, 1865–1920.” Keio Economic Studies 11:41–66.Google Scholar