The study examines a hypothesis explaining the historical impact of socialist
agricultural institutions on Chinese rural fertility. The implementation of collective agri
cultural management and socialization of traditional family relations under various types of
socialist rural institutions are shown to have affected Chinese peasants' fertility by changing
the "intergenerational wealth flows" situation. To take into account the extraneous effects of
economic conditions and family planning policy on rural fertility, statistical models are
constructed which compute residual fertility fluctuations unexplained by these factors. By
comparing the unexplained fluctuations of rural fertility with institutional changes that in
varying degrees weakened the traditional sociopolitical and economic functions of family, we
assess our hypothesis on the relation between macro institutional changes and fertility
behavior of rural families.
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