Urbanization and Development
Brown University Studies in Population and Development
Urban Migrants in Developing Nations: Patterns and Problems of Adjustment, edited by Calvin Goldscheider
Rural Migration in Developing Nations: Comparative Studies of Korea, Sri Lanka, and Mali, edited by Calvin Goldscheider
Why People Intend to Move: Individual and Community-Level Factors of Out-Migration in the Philippines, Sun-Hee Lee
Social Change and Family Processes: Arab Communities in Shefar-A'm, Majid Al-Haj
Rural Development and Migration: A Study of Family Choices in the Philippines, Sally E. Findley
Scandinavian Exodus: Demography and Social Development of 19th-century Rural Communities, Briant Lindsay Lowell
Urbanization and Development: The Rural-Urban Transition in Taiwan, Alden Speare, Jr., Paul K.C. Liu, and Ching-lung Tsay
Brown University Studies in Population and Development
Published in cooperation with the Population Studies and Training Center Brown University
Editor
Calvin Goldscheider
Editorial Board
Sidney Goldstein
Philip Leis
Morris D. Morris
Alden Speare, Jr.
Urbanization and Development
The Rural-Urban Transition in Taiwan
Alden Speare, Jr., Paul K.C. Liu, and Ching-lung Tsay
First published 1988 by Westview Press
Published 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright 1988 by Taylor & Francis
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Speare, Alden.
Urbanization and development.
(Brown University studies in population and
development)
Bibliography: p.
1. UrbanizationTaiwan. 2. Rural development
Taiwan. I. Liu, Paul K.C. II. Tsay, Ching-lung.
III. Title. IV. Series.
HT147.T3S64 1988 307.7'6'0951249 87-29532
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-21275-9 (hbk)
The growth and expansion of cities and the transition from a rural to an urban society are among the most critical links between population change and economic development. On the one hand, migration is one of the fundamental demographic processes associated with changes in the population of urban places; the changing distribution of population between urban and rural places has been associated in the West historically with the revolutions in mortality and fertility control. On the other hand, industrialization and economic expansion emerged in the cities of Western nations, bringing new opportunities and challenges to the welfare of nation states and their populations.
This volume examines these patterns of demographic and economic change in developing nations by focusing on urbanization and migration in Taiwan, and by investigating the linkages between these processes and increases in population size and growth of the economy. Over the last several decades, Taiwan has been transformed from a rural to an urban society and has undergone the demographic transition from high to low birth and death rates. Estimates for the mid-1980s suggest that Taiwan is characterized by an expectation of life of 73 years, rates of infant mortality less than 10 per 1,000 live births, and a total fertility rate of only 1.9 children per woman. Fully two-thirds of its population live in places designated as urban. These demographic indicators place Taiwan among the most developed nations of the world.
Along with these demographic and urban transitions, the economy has shifted over the last several decades from agriculture to industry, from local to international trade, and from relatively simple to more complex economic specialization and diversification. These changes gained momentum after World War II and have dramatically altered the lives of the population living in Taiwan. Standards of living have improved, educational levels have increased, intergenerational occupational mobility has intensified, and processes of modernization have clearly emerged. Yet, Taiwan has retained some unique features including both its social organization and culture, and its international linkages, that distinguish it from other societies.
What determined the rates of urbanization in Taiwan? What are the consequences of population concentration in the cities and metropolitan areas of Taiwan? What are the ways in which economic development and population transformation are linked? How are these broader societal trends translated into changing lifestyles and living standards of the people living in Taiwan? These are the questions that Alden Speare Jr., Paul K.C. Liu and Ching-lung Tsay, address in this monograph. They approach their subject with an authoritative, in-depth, sophisticated investigation of the major contours of social, economic, and demographic change. Their detailed knowledge of Taiwan, its history and society, does not prevent them from seeing the broader implications of their case study. They compare and contrast demographic and economic patterns in Taiwan to those found in research on urbanization, migration and development in other countries. In turn, they generate important new research hypotheses and point to policy implications for other developing nations of the Third World. Their comparisons enhance the quality and value of their case study.
Nevertheless, their attention is primarily directed to Taiwan. Using a wide range of data sources-censuses, population registration data, and sample survey data sets-the authors expertly guide us through an assessment of social, economic, and demographic changes in Taiwan over the last decades in the context of the rural-urban transformation and the development of new city configurations. Details on urbanization in Taiwan as a whole and on the expansion of Taipei are analyzed in combined economic and demographic contexts.
The demographic transformation in Taiwan is usually attributed to the development of an extensive family planning program and the debate has centered over its role in the decline in fertility. In this volume, Speare and his colleagues have documented the central role of another demographic process in the socio-economic development of Taiwan, migration. Movement from rural areas to urban places was part of the economic development and the demographic revolutions that characterized Taiwan. The importance of migration in the development-demographic relationship finds extensive support in this analysis of Taiwan and is applicable more widely to other developing nations.
The book focuses on both macro- and micro-level issues. Starting at the macro level, the volume provides an historical overview of urban growth in Taiwan, pointing out the relatively smooth distribution of cities of various sizes and the absence of disproportionate population concentration, in a primate city. Using the wealth of data available on urban growth, with careful attention to problems of classification and definitions over time, the authors document the emerging system of cities in Taiwan, the fit of the rank-size rule in Taiwan, and the critical role of intermediate cities in its urban development. The analysis proceeds to relate these urbanization patterns to the processes of socio-economic development in Taiwan, revealing the positive linkages between these macro processes. Crosssectional and longitudinal analyses show the powerful connections between indicators of economic development and patterns of urbanization.
