Oct 3, 2003

William Parish and Edward O. Laumann are pleased to announce the first public release of Chinese Health and Family Life Survey (CHFLS). The dataset is available for free, downloadable in several formats from the PRC website , by following the “download dataset” links. Research design and questionnaire are also available from this website. The CHFLS was carried out between August 1999 and August 2000 in 18 widely dispersed provinces, with 3,821 completed interviews for a response rate of 76%. It used a complex sample design, and includes the means to control for design effects through modern statistical software. With the exclusion of Tibet and Hong Kong, the sample is nationally representative of the adult population of China aged 20 to 64 years. Topical areas include childhood sexual contact, intimate partner violence, forced sex, sexual harassment, body image concerns, sexual well-being, and sexually transmitted diseases and risk behavior. This study provides a baseline from which to anticipate and track future change. It is one of the first omnibus studies of sexual behavior in a developing country. Initial analyses reveal drastic changes in sexual behavior among young cohorts in China, transforming from conservative, family-based sexuality to a more liberal, pleasure-centered system. The CHFLS was a collaborative project of the University of Chicago/NORC, China’s Renmin University, Peking Union Medical College and the University of North Carolina. Primary funding support was provided by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (RO1 HD34157). Additional support was provided by grants from the Population Research Center at the University of Chicago, and the Fogarty Center, the Center for AIDS Research, and the STD Cooperative Research Center at the University of North Carolina.