Growth and Control of Population in China: The Urban-Rural Contrast

Abstract

China's population is large and its annual growth significant. Since the mid-1950s, the Chinese government has made four attempts to curb the growth and hopes to limit the total population to 1.2 billion by the year 2000. Thus it has established a policy of limiting families to one child each. These efforts of population control have been successful in cities but have fallen short in rural areas.

Using the 1982 Chinese census and data from a national sampling on fertility, this paper examines the urban-rural contrasts in demographic and marital behavior, rates of growth, and implementation of the one child policy. It discusses the variables, such as education, occupation, and political factors, that affect the urban and rural populations. The majority of rural couples still desire a larger family. The paper probes the reasons for this and finds that the traditional concerns of old age and family propagation are more important than are economic reasons, such as increasing the family labor force. To implement the one child policy local governments have set forth directives against second and higher-order births. They also are promoting the development of small towns and the transference of farmers to nonagricultural jobs. The government is attempting to integrate urban and rural administrations and to establish “population development regions'’around the country so that cities can play a central role in population control.

Key Words:

• population control
• China
• urban-rural contrasts