During China's 4,000 year history, there have been five distinct societal periods. These periods were private society, slave society, fuedel society, the semicolonial and the semifeudal societies, and new China, or the People's Republic. The first datum on population can be traced back to 2140 B.C. during the Xia Dynasty which was the commencemet of China's slave society.
During the first 600,000 recorded years of population growth, which began with the Yuanmou Man Dynasty during the private society time period, and continued until the begining of the Xia Dynasty, and the onset of the slave soceity, the population of China was only 10 million people. This number shows that China's productive forces were very low, and a high mortality rate balanced out an equally high birth rate, the result of which was little to no population growth. During the slave society population growth was kept to a minimum by the precarious postion which slaves held in society. Slaves were exploited and suppresed by their masters making for difficult and unhealthy lives. Slaves were also not given reproductive freedom, they were not involved in the decision making process involving their birth and marriages. Another factor which made population growth stay realatively slow during this time period was the effect that frequent wars and small conflicts had on the slave population. These skirmishes often resulted in the death of large numbers of slaves. If the master was killed, then many of his slaves were burried alive with him. When the slave society came to an end in 475 B.C. the estimated population was about 20 million people. The estimated average anual population growth rate during China's entire slave society was approxametly 0.25%.
The fuedel society of China lasted for more than 2,000 years from 475 B.C. until the outbreak of the Opium war in 1840. During the fuedel society the lives of China's poor were much like they had been previously during the slave society, peasants lived on their masters land and worked until exhaustion for very little pay. Becuase of the hard life style during the fuedel system, large families became an advantage. Sayings like "more children means greater fortune," and "the more children the better" became mainstream during this time period. This attitude to a certain extent promoted population growth. However, any growth which happened to take place during the fuedel society seemed to be squelched by frequent wars between lords in which large numbers of peasants were killed, peasant uprisings by disatisfied peasant populations, epidemics, plagues, and other natural disasters. Every time that a new dynasty rose to power, there was a decline in the peasant population due to unstable political policy. After this decline, there was a typical period of growth during the heyday of the dynasty. When the fuedel society came to an end with the Opium war of 1840, the population was an estimated 412.81 million.
With the Opium war of 1840 foreign interest came to China and with it the semifuedel/semicolonial society of the West. During this relatively short period of China's history which only lasted until1949, the Chinese population increased from 412.81 million to 541.67 million. During the semifuedel/semicolonial society and the founding of the People's Republic of China, the population started to grow extremely quickly. This growth can be attributed to fundemental changes in the countries economy, and social systems.
In the 4,000 years prior to the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, the population rose from 30 million to 541.67 million. An average increase of less than 130,000 people a year. It only took 35 years, form 1949-1984, for the population of China to reach 1034.75 million. An anual increase of 14.09 million people. The main increase in China's population took place during the years after the founding of the People's Repuplic.
Sky Rogers
New China's Population, Macmillan Publishing Company, Copyright 1988.