The evolution of population policy in rural China

Fertility declined rapidly in China in the 1970s, to slightly above replacement level by 1978. It was intended by the government that the One-Child Family Policy, introduced in 1979, would lower fertility still further. However, the decollectivization of agriculture, also initiated in the late 1970s, weakened collective institutions, thereby undermining birth planning administration and family planning services. The consequent stall in fertility was succeeded in 1987 by a sudden and pronounced decline, to a total fertility rate of 1.8 in 1992. This paper is an attempt to explain this recent decline in terms of falling demand for children, the provision of more accessible family planning services, and the operation of restrictive population policy. The major emphasis is on the formulation and implementation of birth control policies in rural areas. Since 1979 central government population policy has become progressively liberalized, culminating in the format abandonment of the One-Child Family Policy in 1991. Local policymakers, however, have been intimately exposed to the reproductive demands of the peasantry. As a result a uniform national policy co-exists with highly diverse policies at the local level, dependent on social and economic conditions. The declining authority of township (commune) birth planning administrations was arrested in the late 1980s with the massive injection of funds from all levels of government. This reversal was aided by the recruitment of over 50 million volunteers by the Communist Party-led Family Planning Association, to reinforce the work of birth planning cadres and family planning personnel. Above all, it is argued that the effective implementation of local birth plans has relied on an intensification of cooperation between birth planning officials and other local government cadres who regulate access to resources, such as land and credit, without which the aspirations of ordinary people cannot be realised.