The Growth of the One-child Family and Other Changes in the Low Fertility Countries of Asia

Abstract

In this chapter, I will concentrate on the low fertility countries of Asia — those with Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.5 or below. Which countries are we talking about? Essentially all of East Asia (except for North Korea and Mongolia), as well as Singapore and Thailand’ in Southeast Asia. Trends in TFR for the countries for which annual estimates are available are given in Table 3.1. Although the exact level of fertility in China is still a highly contested issue, for our purposes, China can be considered one of these low fertility countries. If its TFR is not as low as 1.5, it is certainly not very much higher.