Raising and Solving New Questions in China's Late Imperial Demographic History, and Their Economic and Environmental Implications

Examining China s premodern demographic history shows that age-specific rates of births and deaths are a crucial element usually missing in reconstructing the local histories needed to refine nationwide generalizations. They also raise unanticipated questions, relating for example to diet, stress, and disease . The extensive data on virtuous women in local gazetteers, never previously utilized, show wide local variations in expectancy of life. The project will determine parts of this spatial pattern, and that of fertility where information is systematic enough. These findings will be interpreted by integrating them with the local histories of women s experiences.