FERTILITY OF RURAL CHINA - EFFECTS OF LOCAL FAMILY-PLANNING AND HEALTH-PROGRAMS

The rationing of births in China after the 1979 announcement of the '' one-child family policy'' has been held responsible for the rapid decr ease in Chinese fertility, whereas other observers have noted that par allel fertility declines occurred with voluntary behavior in other Eas t and Southeast Asian countries. This paper assesses the joint contrib ution of local family planning and health programs, individual charact eristics of women, and the development of their communities, as explan atory variables for Chinese fertility in rural areas of three province s in 1985. Given the explicit quantitative reproductive goals of the g overnment, an ordered Probit model for cumulative fertility is estimat ed for women age 15-34 and 35-49.