Birth Control: A View from a Chinese Village

THE SUCCESS of the PRC's program to control its population will be decided in the 2,000,000 villages of China's countryside. This essay describes the 1979-80 birth control campaign as it was executed in one of those villages Starwood Brigade in Guangdong Province and discusses China's demographic prospects in the light of this case study. I conclude that Beijing has both the political will and the organizational strength necessary to curb its population growth.