FERTILITY DECLINE IN EAST-ASIA

With the fall of fertility in China to near or below replacement level s in the early 1990s, the whole of East Asia may now be said to have c ompleted a demographic transition. Its experience lies between that of the West and the many developing countries in which demographic trans ition is now under way. The main features and possible underlying caus es of the fertility declines in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China during this century are discussed. Fertility decline in East Asia is i nteresting both in its own right, as a chapter in the history of human reproduction, and for the light it may shed on fertility decline in t he rest of the world.