This article provides a broad overview of China's family planning policy during the last three
decades, highlighting key trends and goals of the program at national and provincial levels. It
focuses on the administrative, economic, cultural, and other factors that have helped or hindered
the family planning eflort and reviezus the impact of the program on the provincial population. A
key question is zuhether the policy of strict fertility control will remain relevant and enforceable as
population growth slows, as controlling private life becomes increasingly problematic for the
government, and as new demographic problems (for example, aging) emerge. (STUDIESIN FAMILY
PLANNING2002; 33[1]: 103-113)