Estimated birth and death rates in the early Meiji period of Japan

Bibliographic Data

ID5084849
AuthorsYuzo Morita (corresponding author)
Year1963
Volume17
Issue1
Pages33-56
Publication date1963-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopulation Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0032-4728 • E-ISSN: 1477-4747
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00324728.1963.10405751
OpenAlexW2317275810
LanguageEN
Citations received5

According to the official vital statistics based on the birth and death registration, birth and death rates in Japan in the last quarter of the nineteenth century were very low when considered in relation to the economic and social circumstances of those days. Moreover, death rates were increasing and this is inconsistent with the medical and public health improvements brought about by the introduction of Western civilization. Obviously these movements are due to the incompleteness of the statistical data. In the present paper the author has tried to estimate as far as possible, the true trend of birth and death rates as well as a more convincing age structure of the population in the early Meiji period of Japan. The analysis has revealed that the estimated death rates were higher than the official rates. The estimated rates declined slightly throughout the period, contrary to the movement of the official death rates. Estimated birth rates, too, should have been higher than the official rates, and did not show any perceptible upward movement, at least until the late 1890's. These and other observations show that the driving force of population growth in the early Meiji period was not the increase in births, as is usually asserted, but the decline in death rates. It is further suggested that the take-off of population growth from the stationary state of the Tokugawa period set in much earlier than was generally believed and had perhaps already begun not later than 1850

Ancient history · Birth rate · Civilization · Developed country · Fertility · Geography · Infant mortality · Meiji period · Mortality rate · Period (music) · Population · Population statistics · Quarter (Canadian coin) · Sociology · Demography · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History

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