Abstract

PIP:

This article examines the implications of zero population growth (ZPG) in Shanghai. In 1993 the crude birth rate was 6.50%, the crude mortality rate was 7.27%, and the natural rate of population growth was -0.78%. Shanghai achieved negative population growth (NPG) for the first time in 1993. NPG occurs when the number of births is less than the number of deaths. NPG occurs more frequently in developed rather than developing countries such as China. Shanghai had replacement or below replacement fertility since 1971, when the total fertility rate (TFR) was 1.84 children/woman. China's TFR reached 2.31 children/woman in 1990, whereas Shanghai's TFR of 2.36 children/woman occurred in 1969. In order to reach NPG in Shanghai, fertility was low for 20 years. NPG is reached through low fertility, reduced numbers of women of childbearing age, and increased numbers of elderly. China's age pyramid showed 28% of total population aged under 15 years in 1990 compared to Shanghai's 18%. 9% of China's population comprised people older than 60 years, while Shanghai's elderly amounted to 14% of total population. A comparison of demographic and socioeconomic measures among other countries with ZPG or NPG showed that the age structure of population determined this status. ZPG or NPG countries are characterized as having smaller reproductive age populations with low fertility and larger elderly populations with growth in the crude mortality rate. It took Shanghai 20 years to reach a low fertility population and a sufficiently large elderly population for ZPG to occur. Shanghai's fertility declines were largely due to 30 years of family planning: the one child rate, the contraceptive usage rate, the one-child certificate rate, and the sterilization rate. These measures were already low by the 1970s, when family planning became widespread in China. Shanghai was ahead of China in socioeconomic growth. Shanghai's NPG illustrated continuous progress in development and family planning and aging of the population.