CONTEXT: By 1979, China had begun implementing the so-called one-child policy, which severely restricts couples' childbearing. It is important to understand Chinese women's perceptions of how their lives have been affected by this policy and by the use of family planning.

METHODS: Survey and focus group data collected in 7 996 and 1998 from women in three Chinese provinces-Jiangsu, Anhui and Yunnan-were used to examine links connecting family planning and childbearing to women's lives within the family, including their relationships with spouses and other family members, and their opportunities for education, employment and social activities.

RESULTS: Women related family planning to the country's economic situation and to their ability to prosper by having fewer children to support. Increased prosperity enabled them to provide for children's education and to build them houses. In Jiangsu, 73-75% of respondents who had had one child were satisfied with their number of children, regardless of sex; in Anhui and Yunnan, 54-58% of women who had one son and no daughter reported being satisfied, compared with 31-50% of women who had one daughter and no sons. The great majority (73-99%) of women in all three provinces who had two children-regardless of sex-were satisfied with their number of children.

CONCLUSIONS: Few women disputed that women's lives were better now than in the past. China's one-child policy, however, places women-particularly those in rural areas-in a situation where they are pressured by the government's childbearing requirements on one side and by society's preference for sons on the other.

International Family Planning Perspectives, 2003,30(2):68-76

In the 1950s, China's Chairman Mao Zedong rejected the need for family planning programs, saying that China needed more labor power.1 However, by 1979, China had begun implementing the world's most stringent antifertility policy and program, which amounted to an assault on China's system of gender norms and roles. The policy, which limited most couples to one child, was justified on the grounds that China could grow economically only if population growth were held in check.2 In addressing the conflict between the so-called one-child policy and a society that valued males over females, the government noted that "feudal thinking" leading to son preference would change as a result of economic growth and the implementation of a system for old-age security.3