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9 - Maternal Mortality in Taiwan and the Netherlands, 1850-1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2021

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Summary

Maternal mortality is an important measure of the standard of living in societies both in the past and at present. Recent research on maternal mortality has focused on its relation to fertility behavior, infant mortality, and broader trends in death rates and sex differential mortality (Chen et al. 1974, Hieu 1999, Loudon 1992). Difficulties in collecting data and constructing measures to estimate maternal mortality have also received the attention of scholars (Bouvier-Colle et al. 1991; Graham 1989; Rutenberg et al.; Stanton et al. 1996; Stecklov 1995). Results from studies like these have had considerable impact on development policies.

Maternal mortality rates and trends are inextricably intertwined with family and gender systems. Few scholars have compared maternal mortality in two societies like the Taiwanese and the Dutch where these systems are radically different. In this article we compare data drawn from the Taiwanese household registers, vital statistics reports, and censuses from the Japanese colonial period (1906-1945) with comparable data from the Netherlands (1850-1920). During these periods, we examine the demographic characteristics as well as the institutional and cultural contexts relevant to a comparison of maternal death rates in both countries. Register data for colonial Taiwan show that the number of deaths per 1000 women age 15 to 49 averaged 9.4 ; the comparable rate for the Netherlands 1850-1920 averaged between 5.6 and 6.3 (see Tables 7A- 7D). In the same periods, the general fertility rate (births per 1000 women 15-49 per year) was 233.6 for Taiwan and 134 for the Netherlands.

Midwives were chiefly responsible for delivering births in both Taiwan and the Netherlands, and thus we begin by discussing maternal care during the research period and the effect midwives may have had on the level of maternal mortality. We also introduce the data sets used as well as the statistical measures employed to measure maternal mortality. The second section of the paper provides for an overview of mortality in the two countries by comparing female and maternal mortality in both countries and contrasting male to female death rates. In the third part of the paper we turn our attention to factors increasing the risk of maternal death, including maternal age, parity and birth interval. Fourthly we discuss the relation between maternal and infant mortality.

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Death at the Opposite Ends of the Eurasian Continent
Mortality Trends in Taiwan and the Netherlands 1850–1945
, pp. 229 - 274
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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