Chinese happy with fewer children

Press, 9 May 1985, Page 20

Chinese happy with fewer children

NZPA-AFP Peking The message that bigger families are not necessarily happier families is gradually sinking in among China’s 800 million peasants, according to a survey by an official Chinese magazine. The latest edition of the French-language edition of the “Peking Review,” published the findings of a poll among 370 one-child families in the town of Zigong in China’s rich western province of Szechuan.

Among couples questioned, 217 said they were satisfied with just one child, 153 said they hoped for a second, but none said they wanted more than that.

“This survey shows a change in Chinese peasants’ thinking on the number of children they want. They no

longer think that the more children one has, the happier one is,” the review said. Indeed the family planning commission in Szechuan, China’s most populous province with 107.6 million people, has claimed a fall in its population growth rate from 28.98 a thousand in 1971 to 6.05 a thousand in 1983.

When asked why they wanted a second child, 41 per cent of those couples who said they did, explained that' they hoped to be happier in their old age. Forty per cent said they were frightened of losing their first child and being alone in old age, 14 per cent said they wanted more hands for the work, and 5 per cent argued that they neded a son to perpetuate their family line.