Abstract
As 80 per cent of China’s population is rural and 87.2 per cent of births in China occur in the countryside it is ultimately there that the battle to control population growth will be won or lost.1 Far greater efforts are needed in the villages than in the towns, not only because peasants vastly outnumber city-dwellers, but also because while some conditions historically associated with a rapid fall in fertility are present in the towns, this is not the case in the countryside. In the 1960s, China’s planners, like planners in many other developing countries, saw efficient delivery of the contraceptives and contraceptive education as the main tasks in population control. By the 1970s they had recognised that motivation was the fundamental problem.
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Notes and References
Pi-chao Chen and Adrienne Kols, ‘Population and Birth Planning in the People’s Republic of China’. Population Reports, Series J, no. 25, January–February, 1982.
G. W., BARCLAY, et al., ‘A Reassessment of the Demography of Traditional Rural China’, Population Index 42, 1976, 606–35.
Marshall Balfour, Roger Evans, Frank Notestein and Irene Tauber, Public Health and Demography in the Far East, Rockefeller Foundation (1950); extracts from the section on China have been reprinted in the archives section of Population and Development Review, vol.6, no. 1, June 1980, 317–22.
Tian Xueyuan, ‘A Survey of Population Growth, since 1949’, in Liu Zheng et al. (ed.) China’s Population’s Problems and Prospects (Beijing: New World Press, 1981) 42.
See for example Charles H. C. Chen and Carl W. Tyler, ‘Demographic Implications of Family Size Alternatives in the People’s Republic of China’, The China Quarterly, March 1982, 68.
Delia Davin, Womanwork: Women and the Party in Revolutionary China. ch. 4, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).
The economic value of children in peasant society is a subject of controversy among experts (see Eva Mueller, ‘The Economic Value of Children in Peasant Agriculture’ in Ronald Ridker (ed.) Population and Development (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1977) 98–153, and Nick Eberstadt, ‘Recent Declines in Fertility in LCDs, and what “Population Planners” may learn from them’, World Development 1980, vol 8, 51–7). My remarks here are based on my impression of what Chinese peasants believe about the cost and value of their children. It is after all belief which determines fertility decisions.
Cheng Du, ‘An Analysis of a Report on the Reproduction of the Rural Population’, Jingji Yanjiu, 20 June 1982.
For the best discussion of the effect of virilocal marriage on women in China see Norma Diamond, ‘Collectivisation, Kinship and the Study of Women in Rural China’, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, January–March, 1975.
The Guangdong peasants studied by Mosher in 1979–80 believed that children were earning more than they cost by their mid-teens (Stephen W. Mosher, ‘Birth Control: A View from a Chinese Village’, Asian Survey, vol. XXII, no. 4, April 1982).
See the lengthy and useful discussion on the way bride-price has developed in the People’s Republic in William L. Parish and Martin King Whyte, Village and Family in Contemporary China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).
Cheng Du, ‘An Analysis’.
Zhao Liren and Zhu Chuzhu, ‘A Preliminary Enquiry into the Problem of Second Births Outside the Plan’. Renkou Yanjiu, no. 3, 1983.
Zheng et al. China’s Population: Problems and Prospects (Beijing: New World Press, 1981) 5.
For a study which found a strong relationship between the existence of a health clinic in a village and the village’s acceptance of the 1970s birth planning campaign see, William Parish and Martin King White, Village and Family in Contemporary China (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1978) 150–3.
The following account is based mainly on W. R. Lavely, ‘China’s Rural Population Statistics at the Local Level’, Population Index, 48, 665–77 and Qian Xinjian, ‘Possible Obstacles to the Realisation of the One-child Family in China’, unpublished paper written for the David Owen Centre for Population Studies, Cardiff, July 1982.
John Gittings, ‘Communes: new direction or abandonment?’. China Now, May/June 1982, no. 102.
John Gittings, ‘Communes: new direction?’ and the BBC ‘Horizon’ programme on China’s One-Child Family, first broadcast 7 November 1983.
Qian Xinzhong, minister of the State Family Planning Commission, ‘Minister Views Family Planning’, Xinhua (in Chinese) 14 June 1983, translated in Daily Report (JPRS) 17 November 1983.
H. Yuan Tien, ‘Sterilization Acceptance in China’, Studies in Family Planning, vol. 13, no. 10, October 1982, 288.
Victor Nee, Post-Mao Changes in a South China Production Brigade’ in Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (ed.) China from Mao to Deng (London: Zed Press, 1983).
‘Guangdong to enforce sterilisation’, Guangdong Provincial Service, 14 May 1983. translated in Daily Report 13 June 1983.
The Sichuan regulations were produced in March 1979 whereas those for Shanxi were promulgated as late as 29 June 1982. At least nine other provinces produced their own regulations in the intervening three years. Some like Qinghai province have issued more than one set.
The commune I visited was Stonewell Commune, Guangzhou municipality; for Zhangqing Commune, near Suzhou, see Ashwani Saith, ‘Economic Incentives for the One-child Family in Rural China’, China Quarterly, September 1981.
See Ashwani Saith, ‘Economic Incentives’, China Quarterly, September 1981, 497.
For a recent interesting discussion of rural income inequalities see, E. B. Vermeer, ‘Income Differentials in Rural China’, China Quarterly, March, 1982.
For example the authors of a survey of the single-child family policy in Hefei, Anhui, believed that standardisation would assist its implementation. (The Population Research Office, Anhui University, ‘A Survey of One-Child Families in Anhui Province, China’, Anhui Population, April, 1981).
This categorisation of responsibility systems is based on Greg O’Leary and Andrew Watson, ‘The Responsibility System and the Future of Collective Farming’, Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 8, 1982. I am grateful to the authors from much enlightenment about the nature of responsibility systems. Another interesting discussion of the implications of responsibility systems can be found in Barbara Hazard, ‘Socialist Household Production: Some Implications of the New “Responsibility System” in China’, Bulletin of the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, vol. 13, no. 4, September 1982.
For a much fuller discussion of household sidelines see Elisabeth J. Croll, ‘The promotion of domestic sideline production in rural China, 1978–9’, in Jack Gray and Gordon White (eds) China’s New Development Strategy (London: Academic Press, 1982).
Ren Zhongyi, First Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, reported in Guangzhou Ribao, 26 December 1982, translated in Daily Report 12 January 1983.
Xu Shaozhi, ‘To Control Population Growth we must Emphasise “Responsibility”’, Renkou Yanjiu, no. 4, 1982. Many different versions of the same sentiment can be found. Some such quotation crops up in every discussion of the effect of responsibility systems on family planning.
The prohibition on hiring labour has been relaxed, the press now contains references to the conditions under which households may hire ‘assistants’. (see for example ‘Anhui Regulations on Specialised Households’, Anhui Provincial Service, Daily Report, 8 June 1983). None the less the normal way for a household to enlarge its labour force is still by increasing the number of its members.
See for example the local duodrama, ‘Going to Meet Maternal Grandmother’, in Leo Orleans (ed.) Chinese Approaches to Family Planning (White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1978). This is one of the many propaganda pieces aimed at the older generation.
See for example the letter of fifteen peasant women from Qizhen Commune, Hexian County, Anhui Province in RMRB, 23 February 1983. Each was the mother of between three and nine girls. The letter complains of ill-treatment from mothers-in-law and the rest of society. The women claim that they had not wished to bear so many children but were bullied into continuing to try for sons.
These figures are taken from John S. Aird, ‘The preliminary results of China’s 1982 Census’. China Quarterly, December 1983.
Huaiyuan County’, no. 2, 1982, Xiao Sanhua, ‘How to Carry Out Family Planning After Adopting Production Responsibility Systems in Rural Areas’, no. 3, 1982, Xu Shaozhi, ‘To Control Population Growth we Must emphasise “Responsibility”’, no.4, 1982; Zhang Xinxia, ‘One-child Families also have Possibilities for Getting Rich’, no. 5, 1982. Zhu Mian, ‘Agricultural Responsibility in the Work of Family Planning in the Rural Areas’, no. 5, 1982. Hu Fangrong, ‘The Experience of Organising the Permanent Work Team for Family Planning in Wuqushan Commune’, Taojiang Co., Hunan province, no. 4, 1983.
See for example Xiao Sanhua, ‘How to Carry Out Family Planning after Adopting Production Responsibility Systems in Rural Areas’, Renkou Yanjiu, no. 5, 1982.
Ibid.
John Gittings, ‘Communes: New Direction of Abandonment?’ China Now, May/June 1982. Elizabeth Wright, ‘Travel Notes from Luci Commune, Tonglu County, Zhejiang province.’ I am most grateful to Ms. Wright for allowing me to use these informative notes.
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, ‘Circular on Rural Work in 1984’. reported in BR 20 February 1984.
Tian Xueyuan, ‘A Survey of Population growth’ in Liu Zheng et al., China’s Population, 46.
‘Let’s work out an account of our population, arable land and food grain’, Beijing Domestic Service, 19 January 1983. translated in Daily Report, 25 January 1983.
See Ashwani Saith, ‘Economic Incentives’. Sometimes the discrimination is in favour only of those whose single child is a daughter. For example a report from Sunjiatuan commune, Weihai city, Shandong province, describes an old people’s home in which old people without sons receive a food ration and cash allowance worth 1.3 times the local per capita income. If old people who have sons become residents, their sons cover their expenses. BR, 14 February 1983 27.
Xu Xuehan, ‘Resolutely Implement Population Policy in the Rural Areas’, RMRB, 5 February 1982.
Elizabeth Wright, Travel Notes 1982, Maoping Brigade, Luci Commune, Tonglu county, Zhejiang.
Ren Zhongyi Provincial Party Secretary of Guangdong Province, in Guangzhou Ribao, 26 December 1982, note 43.
Xu Xuehan, Resolutely Implement the Policy on Rural Population’, RMRB, 5 February 1982, 5.
Anhui University, ‘A Survey of the Single Child Family of West Side Hefei, Anhui Province, China’, Anhui University 1980 and ‘A Population Survey in the Western District of Beijing’. Renkou Yanjiu, no. 1, 1981.
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© 1985 Elisabeth Croll, Delia Davin and Penny Kane
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Davin, D. (1985). The Single-child Family Policy in the Countryside. In: Croll, E., Davin, D., Kane, P. (eds) China’s One-Child Family Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17900-8_2
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