ABSTRACT
China has experienced one of the most successful fertility declines in demographic history, an observation also made in other chapters of this book. Its total fertility rate (TFR) fell from about 6.5 in the 1960s to 1.8 in the year 2000 (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific: https://www.unescap.org/). While socioeconomic development has undoubtedly played an important role in this process, the precipitous decline in fertility is more likely due to the implementation of the “one couple, one child” population policy initiated in 1979 (Poston and Gu 1987; Poston 1988). Induced abortion, among other proximate causes, is recognized as having greatly contributed to fertility decline in many developing countries (Bongaarts 1978; Frejka 1985; Knodel et al. 1987).
