New zodiacal influences on Chinese family formation: Taiwan 1976

Author: Goodkind D M
Abstract: Although Chinese folklore holds that the Dragon Year is an auspicious time to have a birth, notable increases in Chinese fertility in Dragon Years did not occur before 1976. Demographic explanations for the belated occurence of this phenomenon rely on the notion of natural fertility: that is, couples’ lack of modern contraception had kept such decisions outside the realm of choice. The analysis presented in this article, however, shows that the bulk of the 1976 Dragon Year baby boom on Taiwan was due to strategies that had always been available: marriage timing, abortion, and coital behavior. The natural fertility paradigm thus is insufficent in explaining the motivation for this behavior and should be copmlemented by Insitutional approaches.
Keywords: Chinese folklore, Dargon year, fertility, Taiwan, timing, birth
Notes:
Publication: Demography
Issue: 30(2)
Dated: May 1993
Pages: 127-42