THE EXCLUSION OF NEVER-MARRIED WOMEN FROM CHINESE FERTILITY SURVEYS

Never-married women have been regularly excluded in official national surveys of fertility in China, even in light of evidence of increasing premarital sexual activity. Likewise, never-married women in the Unit ed States were consistently excluded from national fertility surveys p rior to 1982 because of the perceived sensitivity of questions about c ontraceptive use and sexual activities. Data on sexual fertility behav ior from all women of reproductive age, regardless of marital status, can provide direct measures of sexual activity and unintended pregnanc ies, as well as facilitate modeling of social networks underlying the sexual transmission of diseases. China's need for such information, ho wever sensitive, will become more difficult to ignore given increasing pressures to attend to the health needs of their never-married but se xually active population.