RESTRAINING POPULATION-GROWTH IN 3 CHINESE VILLAGES, 1988-93

The latest nationwide survey of Chinese fertility suggests that, after rising during the mid-1980s, fertility has fallen steadily since the late 1980s, reaching replacement level in 1992. Through a re-study of three villages in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, this article explores the politics and economics of this striking demographic development in a locality well known to the authors from previous research. Between 1988 and mid-1993, they find, village fertility fell to new lows due to increased emphasis on birth planning by leaders at all levels and, to a lesser extent, economic advance that reduced already very low childbearing aspirations. This microstudy of three ordinary Chinese villages provides dramatic testimony to the changes that can be wrought at the bottom of the administrative hierarchy when the top leadership decides that rapid population growth must be controlled.