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  • Title: Control of fertility in the People's Republic of China.
    Author: Blayo Y.
    Journal: Entre Nous Cph Den; 1993 Jun; (22-23):19. PubMed ID: 12222240.
    Abstract:
    The nature of the changing family planning and population control policies in China and their impact on fertility are discussed. The basic trust of policy was to destroy traditional structures and replace them with social institutions and a new administrative systems. During the 1950s, the Marriage Law was implemented and communes, brigades, and teams in rural areas and work units and district and residents' committees effectively administered the means of population control. The means were political involving mass campaigns and permanent mobilization and administrative involving registration of households. This system was shocked by the Great Leap Forward in 1958 and the after effects and the Cultural Revolution in 1966. State machinery was restored and in place for the third campaign of birth quotas and standards of procreation. Quotas were determined by year and by province, then by municipalities and districts. Meetings were held and women selected to bear children. The legal minimum marriage for males to marry was 20 years and 18 years for females; however, it was strongly urged that females not marry until 23 years in rural areas and 25 years in urban areas males; 25 or 28 years). Rural areas stipulated a birth interval of 3 years and urban areas required 4-5 years. The limit on births was 2 in urban areas. In rural areas it was 3 until 1977 when the number was reduced to 2. Unplanned pregnancies should be terminated. By 1975-76, the program was universally applied, but fertility decline still did not meet the goals of the Four Modernizations for 1978. The single-child campaign was then established in 1979. Incentives and bonuses were offered to those bearing only 1 child and disincentives and penalties were applied to those who had additional children. The Modernization campaign returned productivity to the family unit and children became more valuable; communes were abolished and administrative means of control were limited. A floating population with mobility was able to escape the control of family planning workers. The Marriage Act of 1981 reduced the marriage age to 20 years for females and 22 years for males; the result was increased fertility. The new mobilization of 1983 attempted to restrict births to 1 more vigorously; abortions became compulsory and sterilizations were introduced. Coercion was deemed necessary. The campaign was relaxed in 1984, but by then the floating population had increased.
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