After nearly 30 years of efforts, China has successfully found its own way to have an integrated approach to the population issue with its own national characteristics. A system of regulating and adjusting the population growth with a proper family planning program management has gradually come into being. This is a system in keeping with market economy. China's population and development program has achieved universally acknowledged success. The citizens' rights to subsistence and development and their rights in the socio-economic and cultural fields have been notably improved. //

--The excessive population growth has been brought under effective control. The birth rate and natural growth rate decreased from 33.43‰ and 25.83‰ in 1970 to 15.23‰ and 8.77‰ in 1999 respectively. The total fertility rate of Chinese women went below the replacement level, making China one of the countries with a low fertility level in the world. //

When economically still underdeveloped, China has accomplished a historic transition in population reproduction pattern from one featuring high birth rate, low death rate and high growth rate to one featuring low birth rate, low death rate and low growth rate in a relatively short period of time, a change that took decades or even up to a hundred years for developed countries to realize in the past. //

Great achievements have been made in various social undertakings such as education and public health. By the end of 2000, a nine-year compulsory education has been made universal by and large, and illiteracy among young and middle-aged people has been basically eliminated. On the average, the number of college students for every 10,000 people increased from 8.9 in 1978 to 32.8 in 1999. //

On the whole everybody has access to primary health care service. The maternal mortality rate has plummeted from 94.7 per 100,000 in 1990 to 56.2 per 100,000 in 1998. The hospitalized delivery rate reached over 66.8% in 1999. The average life expectancy increased to 71 years, the same as in medium-level developed countries. //

--Women's status has been raised distinctly, children's rights are protected, and the living standard of senior citizens has been improving. Currently women amount to over one-third of all government functionaries, managerial personnel in state-owned enterprises and institutions and professionals of all trades. In 1999, employed women amounted to 46.5% of the entire workforce in China, compared to the world level of 34.5%, and women's income accounted for 80.4% of men's. //

The mortality for children under five was 42‰ in 1998, a decrease by 31.8% from that of 1991. In 1999, the school-age children enrollment rate reached 99.1% and the rate of primary school graduates entering middle schools reached 94.4%. Also in 1999, the percentage of the one-year-old children inoculated with the BCG vaccine was 97.8%, the polio vaccine 97.4%, the DPT vaccine 97.8%, and the measles vaccine 97.5%. //

In the same year, nearly 30 million retired people throughout the country were covered in the basic retirement insurance scheme, and there were some 1,000 social welfare institutions run by the Government and around 40,000 community-run old folk's homes. //

--The whole society has gained a better understanding of the issue of population. It is agreed that the slow-down of population growth is beneficial to a coordinated and sustained development of population, economy, society, resources and environment; the practice of fertility regulation should be required in a way without laissez-faire; //

while slowing-down population growth, efforts should be made to improve the population quality, reproductive health, quality of life and well being in general so as to realize an all-round human development; the issue of population is essentially a problem of development and could only be solved through economic, social and cultural development. The same period saw impressive changes in the people's attitude towards marriage, childbearing and the elderly support. //

The traditional concepts of "early marriage, early childbirth", "the more sons, the more happiness" and "men are superior to women" has been gradually replaced by the scientific and advanced concepts of "late marriage, and later childbearing, fewer and healthier births" and "boys and girls are equal". More and more people have voluntarily practiced family planning. //

The first marriage age for women of childbearing age averaged 23.57 years in 1998, as against 20.8 years in 1970. The contraceptive prevalence rate of married women of childbearing age reached 83%, and the average family size has decreased from 4.84 members in 1971 to 3.63 members in 1998. //

(Excerpts from the English version of China’s Population and Development in the 21st Century released by the Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China in December, 2000.)