2011 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

In search of closer and reasonable fertility rate ; an attempt to use source materials other than population register in pre-modern Japan.

Research Project

Project/Area Number	21530572
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Sociology
Research Institution	Ritsumeikan University
Principal Investigator	TAKAGI Masao 立命館大学, 産業社会学部, 教授 (70118371)
Project Period (FY)	2009 – 2011
Keywords	出産・出生 / 懐婦書上 / 育児支援 / 人口増加 / 人別帳 / 寿命 / 極老調査
Research Abstract	How do we estimate birth rate or infant mortality rate which has been computed on the basis of such material as Shumon-aratame-cho or Ninbetu-arfatame-cho? This project was originally planned to get much closer rate than that of reported, but unfortunately the Higashi-Nihon earthquake(3.11) crushed it. So, the question was amended as this : How much population age at 80over in reality was during the Edo era? Results are as follows ; 1) In 1849, peasant of the Sendai domain age at 80over was 2, 615, and its sex ratio was 98.9.2) In case of Samurai population in the Okayama domain, on the other hand, the aged classified into the same category was 163 persons at 1695(sex ratio 81.1). Even in the pre modern society, does the Japanese female tend to enjoy much life expectancy than male? 3) Commoners in the Sendai domain cancelled abortion or infanticide when they firmly believed collapse of the Tokugawa-regime.