Economic reforms and fertility behaviour in rural China: an anthropological and demographic inquiry.

How have Chinese economic reforms that started in the late 1970s affected individual fertility behavior in rural China? This research attempts to explain how the deliberate policies of institutional reforms affect fertility outcomes through processes which are both filtered by, as well as reshape, existing social institutions. It is based on fieldwork in a Hebei village from July 1992 to November 1993. It finds that after the reforms, rural Chinese marry at earlier ages. However, declining age at marriage does not increase fertility. Rural couples prefer to have fewer children, and their motivation of having girls becomes stronger.