农民生育的文化边际性

Cultural Marginality of Fertility of the Chinese Peasants

在进入低生育水平的90年代后,农村的计划生育工作面临着新一轮以生育的性别为焦点而引发的一系列问题的严峻挑战,本文正是对于这一挑战的理论思考。文章从社会人口学的角度,提出了关于农民生育文化边际性的理论命题,认为性别是农民生育的核心内容。“生一个男孩”体现了现阶段大多数农民在生育问题上最基本的价值性需求,是他们难以逾越的文化边界,有着文化深层结构上长期的稳定性。在农村人口控制中,我们应该坦然承认农民生育的文化边际性,并考虑将它作为日后制定人口政策的一个重要前提,将计划生育的正当性建立在文化合理性的基础之上,使宏观的“抓紧”,更有可能真正落实为基层的“抓好”,尽可能地减少政策实施的负面效应。

China's rural family planning work in the nineties is challenged by a range of issues resulted from sex preference of childbearing. In a perspective of social demography, the authors propose a theoretical proposition of cultural marginality of the peasants'childbearing, arguing that sex is the central content of the peasants'childbearing, 'to have a boy 'is the most fundamental value and an impassable cultural bound of the peasants'childbearing, and is thus characterized by a culturally structured long-term stability. The cultural marginality of the peasants'childbearing should be taken into consideration in making population policies, and justification of family planning be based on cultural rationality.