Introduction: Fertility Norms and Family Size in China

In China today, the urgent attempt to reduce population growth rates is characterised by a dual approach. First the present government expects, as do most other developing countries, that as China develops and modernises there will be a consequent decline in fertility. It is thus determined that economic development and modernisation will rapidly proceed. Second, the present government also perceives that the process of development and modernisation in China is itself dependent on the degree to which China can reduce her population growth rates. To break this circle of interdependence the government has directly intervened and introduced a radical population plan the chief element of which is the single-child family policy. As its name suggests, this policy demands that except in extraordinary circumstances couples should have no more than one child.