Death at the Opposite Ends of the Eurasian Continent Mortality Trends
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Life at the Extremes 4 Plano_Opmaak 1 24-12-10 11:20 Pagina 1 Theo Engelen, John R. Wen-shan Shepherd & Yang Death at the opposite ends of the Eurasian continent Historical demographers since Malthus have characterized the West- Death at the opposite ends European and Chinese demographic regimes as systems under low and high pressure, respectively. This volume examines the operation of the positive check at the two ends of the Eurasian continent by taking the Netherlands of the Eurasian continent and Taiwan as representatives of the West-European and Chinese mortality regimes. Are these cases as different as the low and high pressure contrast Mortality trends in Taiwan implies? The volume opens with a cluster of chapters dealing with long term trends in mortality and the accompanying changes in causes of death and the Netherlands (Chapters 1 through 4). Both Taiwan and the Netherlands witnessed steady improvements in public health, disease prevention, medical care, and living 1850-1945 • edited by conditions in the periods described; these trends are discussed in Chapters 5 though 8. The third cluster of chapters analyzes the factors affecting mater- nal and infant mortality (Chapters 9 through 12). Finally, in Chapter 13, the Theo Engelen, John R. accuracy of Taiwan’s censuses and death reporting is assessed. Shepherd & Yang Wen-shan Death at the opposite ends of the Eurasian continent is the fourth volume in the series Life at the Extremes: The Demography of Europe and China, edited by Chuang Ying-chang (College of Hakka Studies, nctu, Hsinchu, Taiwan), Life at the Extremes Volume 1v Theo Engelen (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands), and Arthur P. Wolf (Stanford University, U.S.A.) LatE 4 ISBN 978-90-5260-379-7 Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 24-12-10 13:37 Pagina 1 Death at the opposite ends of the Eurasian continent Mortality trends in Taiwan and the Netherlands 1850-1945 Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 01-02-11 14:51 Pagina 2 This publication has been made possible with the financial support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (nwo) This volume is the fourth in the series Life at the extremes. The demography of Europe and China (LatE) edited by Chuang Ying-chang (College of Hakka Studies , National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan), Theo Engelen (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands) and Arthur P. Wolf (Stanford University, U.S.A.) Previously published: LatE 1: Theo Engelen & Arthur P. Wolf (eds.), Marriage and the family in Eurasia. Perspectives on the Hajnal hypothesis (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2005) LatE 2: Chuang Ying-chang, Theo Engelen & Arthur P. Wolf (eds.), Positive or preventive? Reproduction in Taiwan and the Netherlands, 1850-1940 (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2006) LatE 3: Theo Engelen & Hsieh Ying-hui, Two cities, one life. Marriage and fertility in Lugang and Nijmegen (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2007) isbn 978-90-5260-379-7 © 2011, the authors/Aksant Academic Publishers/Amsterdam University Press All rights reserved including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prioir permission from the copyright owner. Book Design: MulderVanMeurs, Amsterdam Printed in the Netherlands by A-D Druk BV, Zeist Aksant Academic Publishers Herengracht 221 1016 bg Amsterdam www.aup.nl Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 24-12-10 13:37 Pagina 3 Death at the opposite ends of the Eurasian continent Mortality trends in Taiwan and the Netherlands 1850-1945 edited by Theo Engelen John R. Shepherd Yang Wen-shan Aksant Amsterdam, 2011 Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 24-12-10 13:37 Pagina 4 Contents 7 Introduction: Death at the opposite ends of the Eurasian continent Mortality trends in Taiwan and the Netherlands, 1850-1945 Theo Engelen & John R. Shepherd 17 1 Trends in mortality and the evolution of the cause-of-death pattern in the Netherlands: 1850-2000 Frans van Poppel 45 2 Trends in mortality and causes of death in Japanese colonial period Taiwan John R. Shepherd 81 3 Mortality in the Netherlands: general development and regional differences Theo Engelen & Marloes Schoonheim 99 4 Regional and ethnic variation in mortality in Japanese colonial period Taiwan John R. Shepherd 153 5 An outline of socio-medical care in the Netherlands, 19th and early 20th centuries Willibrord Rutten 165 6 An overview of public health development in Japan-ruled Taiwan Liu Shi-yung 183 7 The demographic history of smallpox in the Netherlands, 18th -19th centuries Willibrord Rutten 203 8 Anti-malaria policy in colonial Taiwan Ku Ya-wen 229 9 Maternal mortality in Taiwan and the Netherlands, 1850-1945 John R. Shepherd, Marloes Schoonheim, Chang Tian-yun & Jan Kok Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 24-12-10 13:37 Pagina 5 275 10 Maternal depletion and infant mortality Theo Engelen & Arthur P. Wolf 289 11 The massacre of the innocents Infant mortality in Lugang (Taiwan) and Nijmegen (the Netherlands) Theo Engelen & Hsieh Ying-hui 317 12 Illegitimacy, adoption, and mortality among girls in Penghu, 1906-1945 Yu Guang-hong, Huang Yu-lin & Chuu Ling-in 349 13 How reliable is Taiwan’s colonial period demographic data? An empirical study using demographic indirect estimation techniques Li Chun-hao, Yang Wen-shan & Chuang Ying-chang 377 References Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 24-12-10 13:37 Pagina 6 Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 24-12-10 13:37 Pagina 7 Introduction: 7 Death at the opposite ends of the Eurasian continent Mortality trends in Taiwan and the Netherlands, 1850-1945 Theo Engelen & John R. Shepherd Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 24-12-10 13:37 Pagina 8 8 Death is often referred to as the great equalizer. In the end, it is said, it makes up for differences in life chances among social classes, political entities and histori- cal periods. The sad truth is that although every human being inevitably dies, there is a vast range in the causes and timing of mortality, largely determined by location in space and time and social position. This volume looks into the simi- larities and the differences in mortality at the two ends of the Eurasian continent by taking the Netherlands and Taiwan as case studies representing the West- European and Chinese mortality regimes. This choice is no coincidence. Two centuries ago Thomas Malthus distinguished between a low pressure population system in Western Europe and a high pressure system in Asia, specifically China. In his analysis of the forces determining rates of population growth, Malthus and many of his followers, identified mortality as the major variable in Asia (“positive checks”), and limits on fertility and nuptiality as the major variables in Europe (“preventive checks”) (see among many others: Malthus 1798; Hajnal 1965 and 1981; Wrigley and Schofield 1981; Engelen and Wolf 2005; but also Lee and Wang 1999). Malthus argued that in China universal marriage and uncontrolled fertil- ity led to growth that was only constrained by high mortality (thus, ‘high pres- sure’), while in Western Europe, growth was limited by constraints on fertility stemming from late marriage and high rates of celibacy, with mortality playing a smaller role (‘low pressure’). The group of Taiwanese, Dutch and US scholars contributing to this book participates in a research project called Population and Society in Taiwan and the Netherlands, dedicated to the comparative study of demographic, social and eco- nomic conditions in China and Europe in pre-modern times. The project has already produced three volumes, respectively, on differences in marriage and fam- ily systems (Engelen and Wolf 2005), on differences in fertility (Chuang, Engelen and Wolf 2006), and a case-study comparing marriage and fertility in Nijmegen and Lugang, a Dutch and a Taiwanese town (Engelen and Hsieh 2007). The proj- ect takes Taiwan and the Netherlands as representatives of the extremes of Eurasia and of Malthus’s ideal types. Of course, within territories as vast as China and Europe one finds many differences. Still, the program is guided by the idea that the differences within the two societies are minor compared to the differences between the societies. We controlled our comparison of Taiwan and the Netherlands by choosing two periods in which their economies reached approximately the same level of modernization. As a result, the Taiwanese studies focus on the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945), whereas the Dutch contributions cover roughly the years between 1850 and 1920. In these two periods the societies resembled each other economically as well as demographically, at least in terms of crude rates. It goes without saying that the social and cultural differences remain. This volume contains four clusters of chapters. The first cluster deals with long term trends in mortality and the accompanying changes in causes of death Life at the extremes 4_Two cities, one life 24-12-10 13:37 Pagina 9 (Chapters 1 through 4). The first pair of chapters deals with changes in national 9 levels and patterns of mortality in each of the two societies. Van Poppel warns that overemphasis on national aggregates can obscure the importance of variation within each society . Therefore, in Chapters 3 and 4 we study the surprisingly large impact on mortality due to regional, ethnic and religious differences. Both Taiwan and the Netherlands witnessed steady improvements in pub- lic health, disease prevention, and socio-medical care in the periods described; these trends are discussed in the second cluster of essays. In Chapters 5 and 6 the authors analyze the histories of public health in the two societies.