From immigrants to stayers: Micro-demography of a historical lineage in Sichuan, China

This paper studies the demographic profiles of Chinese domestic immigrants during the Qing era, using the genealogy of one lineage in Sichuan, Yunyang Tu-shi Zupu. The genealogy records individual life history beginning with the immigrant ancestors to Sichuan. This study mainly uses the vital dates recorded in each member's individual entry to the genealogical table, analysing change in demographic indices over time and their causal relationship with individual/family characteristics. The micro-demographic analyses show that the fertility and nuptiality were initially high but on the decline over time while the mortality might have followed the opposite path. This result indicates that the founding generations of the lineage enjoyed a relatively rich life but living standard gradually deteriorated as population pressure on food production became strong. The differential of the initial and terminal generations can be regarded as that of immigrants and stayers. The demographic trend reported in the study shows the assimilation process of immigrant lineages to natives. The higher population growth rate of immigrants derived in this argument may help to mitigate the controversy of the high population growth during the Qing and the low fertility estimates obtained from sedentary populations in the previous studies.