Routledge Handbook of Asian Demography

Zhongwei Zhao, Adrian C. Hayes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780415659901
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351373449
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Demography
• Index: Social Sciences

Home to close to 60 per cent of the world's population, Asia is the largest and by far the most populous continent. It is also extremely diverse, physically and culturally. Asian countries and regions have their own distinctive histories, cultural traditions, religious beliefs and political systems, and they have often pursued different routes to development. Asian populations also present a striking array of demographic characteristics and stages of demographic transition.

This handbook is the first to provide a comprehensive study of population change across the whole of Asia. Comprising 28 chapters by more than 40 international experts this handbook examines demographic transitions on the continent, their considerable variations, their causes and consequences, and their relationships with a wide range of social, economic, political and cultural processes. Major topics covered include: population studies and sources of demographic data; historical demography; family planning and fertility decline; sex preferences; mortality changes; causes of death; HIV/AIDS; population distribution and migration; urbanization; marriage and family; human capital and labour force; population ageing; demographic dividends; political demography; population and environment; and Asia's demographic future.

This handbook provides an authoritative and comprehensive reference for researchers, policymakers, academics, students and anyone who is interested in population change in Asia and the world.

1

Introduction

Zhongwei Zhao and Adrian C. Hayes

Among the countless scholarly handbooks published in recent years this is the first on the demography of Asia. The chapters in this handbook focus on the four-and-a-half-billion people who live in Asia today and their ancestors – especially the extraordinary demographic transition they have experienced since the middle of the last century, the variations in the underlying demographic trends that contribute to their national and subregional differences, and their demographic history. The chapters also include analyses of the causes and consequences of these trends, and population projections describing what the demographic future of Asia might look like. The aim of the handbook is to provide an authoritative and comprehensive reference for researchers, policymakers, students and general readers who are interested in population change in Asia and the world. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to introduce the subject matter and the book. We do not attempt to summarize individual chapters but try to show where they fit into the broader picture as we see it.

Historical population change in Asia and the world

First, what do we mean by ‘Asia’? By convention Asia is often defined geographically as a ‘major region’ or ‘continent’ which comprises that part of the Eurasian landmass (and adjacent islands) located to the east of an imaginary line drawn through the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea and north along the Ural Mountains to the Arctic Ocean. This historical construction, dating from the eighteenth century (with precursors going back to the ancient Greeks), is Eurocentric in the residual way it classifies ‘Asia’ as everything that is not part of Europe.

The United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) and the United Nations Population Division (UNPD), use a different classification of ‘major areas and regions of the world’. Table 1.1 lists the countries and territories of Asia according to this geoscheme and groups them in five regions: Eastern, Southern, Central, South-Eastern and Western Asia, respectively (UNSD 1999). The vast stretch of Russia east of the Urals (otherwise known as ‘Northern Asia’) is not included as part of Asia in this scheme. In general the present volume follows this UN classification, although different ways of grouping countries and territories are occasionally used due to constraints imposed by data sources, since different sources, including autonomous agencies within the UN system, define Asia differently. Using this UN definition, Asia is still the largest ‘major area’ of the world in terms of total land area and population size: its surface land area (32 million sq. km) is slightly larger than the second largest (Africa, with 30 million sq. km), and its population (4.4 billion in 2015) is much larger than the second largest (again Africa, with 1.2 billion). Asia accounts for about 23 per cent of the world’s total land area. It is estimated that this area accounted for 60 per cent of the world’s population in 2015 (UNPD 2015), and about 35 per cent of global GDP (estimated using exchange rates) or 41 per cent (using purchasing power parities) (World Bank 2017).

Asia’s share of world population and the global economy have varied considerably through the centuries. According to the detailed historical estimates made by Angus Maddison (2003), in the year AD 1 Asia accounted for 75 per cent of world population and 76 per cent of the global economy, compared to Western Europe’s shares of 11 and 11 per cent, respectively (Western Europe here includes Western, Northern and Southern Europe according to Maddison’s classification). In AD 1000 the proportions had changed only modestly: Asia’s share of world population was 68 per cent and of the global economy 70 per cent; the corresponding proportions for Western Europe were 10 and 9 per cent, respectively. The end of the first millennium was a low point for Europe, and evidence suggests a decline in average living standards in the West. By 1820, however, the picture looks significantly different: Asia still accounts for 68 per cent of world population but only 59 per cent of the global economy, while Western Europe (and its ‘Western Offshoots’ in North America and Oceania) now account for 14 per cent of world population and 25 per cent of the global economy. The West had pulled ahead, and average living standards in the West were now appreciably higher than in Asia.

Table 1.1Regions, countries and territories of Asia, their surface area and population size, 1950, 2015

...

Region, country or territory		Surface area (000 km^2)		Population (thousands)				Population multiplier, 1950–2015
				1950		2015
Asia		31,915		1,394,018		4,393,296		3.2
Eastern Asia				666,586		1,612,287		2.4
China		9,597		544,113		1,376,049		2.5
China, Hong Kong SAR		1.1		1,974		7,288		3.7
China, Macao SAR		<0.1		196		588		3.0
China, Taiwan Province				7,562		23,381		3.1
Japan		378		82,199		126,573		1.5
Mongolia		1,564		780		2,959		3.8
North Korea		121		10,549		25,155		2.4
South Korea		100		19,211		50,293		2.6
South-Eastern Asia				164,900		633,490		3.8
Brunei		5.8		48		423		8.8
Cambodia		181		4,433		15,578		3.5
Indonesia		1,911		69,543		257,564		3.7
Laos		237		1,683		6,802		4.0
Malaysia		330		6,110		30,331		5.0
Myanmar		677		17,527		53,897		3.1
Philippines		300		18,580		100,699		5.4
Singapore		0.7		1,022		5,604		5.5
Thailand		513		20,710		67,959		3.3
Timor-Leste		15		433		1,185		2.7
Vietnam		331		24,810		93,448		3.8
Southern Asia				493,443		1,822,974		3.7
Afghanistan		653		7,752		32,527		4.2
Bangladesh		148		37,895		160,996		4.2
Bhutan		38		177		775		4.4
India		3,287		376,325		1,311,051		3.5
Iran		1,629		17,119		79,109		4.6
Maldives		0.3		74		364		4.9
Nepal		147		8,483		28,514		3.4
Pakistan		796		37,542		188,925		5.0
Sri Lanka		66		8,076		20,715		2.6
Central Asia				18,131		67,314		3.7
Kazakhstan		2,725		6,703		17,625		2.6
Kyrgyzstan		200		1,740		5,940		3.4
Tajikistan		143		1,532		8,482

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of maps
• List of tables
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Asia’s major demographic data sources
• 3 The development of population research institutions in Asia
• 4 Asian historical demography
• 5 Fertility decline
• 6 Family planning policies and programmes
• 7 Family planning, contraceptive use and abortion
• 8 Reproductive health and maternal mortality
• 9 Son preference, sex ratios and ‘missing girls’ in Asia
• 10 Child mortality
• 11 Changes in old-age mortality since 1950
• 12 Age patterns and sex differentials in mortality
• 13 Trends in causes of death and burden of diseases
• 14 HIV/AIDS in Asia
• 15 Population distribution
• 16 The urbanization of low- and middle-income Asia
• 17 Asia’s international migration
• 18 Forced and refugee migration in Asia
• 19 Changing marriage patterns in Asia
• 20 Family and household composition in Asia
• 21 Asia’s demographic transition: Variations and major determinants
• 22 Human capital formation in Asia 1970–2010
• 23 The process of population ageing and its challenges
• 24 Demographic dividends
• 25 Population and environment in Asia
• 26 Population, the state and security in Asia
• 27 The demographic future of Asia
• 28 Conclusion
• Index