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Birth control contributes to family development: survey

Xinhua, May 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

China's family planning policy has benefited the financial situations and social status of families, said the country's first nationwide survey on family development Wednesday.

The survey included about 32,500 families across China, and showed that families who followed the family planning policy had higher incomes and spent more than those who did not.

Of those following the rules, there were fewer with low incomes or in debt, according to the survey, sponsored by the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC).

Also, the survey showed that families who followed the policy had better health and better communication between generations, said Wang Haidong, head of the NHFPC's family affairs division, at a press conference.

China adopted its birth control policy in the late 1970s and the government estimates that it has prevented some 400 million births. The policy was loosened in 2013 and couples now are allowed to have two children if either parent is an only child

The survey confirmed that nuclear families form a majority of Chinese families, accounting for more than 60 percent.

The income gap was quite big. The income of the richest families was 19 times that of the poorest.

An outstanding problem was that fathers played little part in the upbringing of children. In only 7.5 percent of surveyed families did both parents actively engage in taking care of children, and in only 11.7 percent of the families both parents took part in their child's education. The situation was worse for migrant workers with fathers living and working elsewhere, Wang said.

In about 20 percent of the families, one or both parents were migrant workers. In the families with both parents working and living elsewhere, children are left to the care of grandparents. Most of them are less motivated to perform well in school, said Zhuang Ya'er, research fellow with the China Population and Development Research Center.

The survey found a growing tendency for migrant workers to take their children with them, Zhuang said.

The survey was conducted from last October to February in 233 cities and 321 counties of all 31 provincial divisions, the first on family development of such a scale. It will be conducted every two years, the NHFPC said. Endi