Infant and child survival in Shaanxi, China

In the past several decades China has witnessed an unprecedented decline in infant and child mortality. While China's success in reducing infant and child mortality has been ascribed to the unusual level of government intervention, there is evidence that change and variation have been, and are, influenced by socioeconomic conditions, familial relations as well as biosocial determinants. This study investigates these influences using retrospective report from 1985 survey in Shaanxi province. The study reveals that social revolution in Chinese families is the mediating force linking the broad societal forces and biosocial determinants with infant mortality; whereas social transformation of the Chinese society has a consistent effect on infant as well as child mortality.