ABSTRACT
The last chapter demonstrated that couples’ fertility motivation has been reshaped by the changing post-reform context. In most if not all cases, a rural couple’s motivation for having a particular number of children, and their desire to space births are not simply responses to formal state family planning policies. Fertility decision-making is an interaction between individual reproductive couples and their families, as well as village and township cadres. Given the tremendous control the Chinese state wields over Chinese society in the domain of reproduction, a study of peasant fertility strategies alone will not be sufficient to understand the forces underlying family formation in rural China today.
