We found that in recent years, greater emphasis has been placed on service and less on management and enforcement.

1. Financial rewards over penalties

The "Fewer children more wealth" campaign has been carried out in Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Hainan provinces. The program encourages people to exercise family planning and they are rewarded for doing so. This is one way of encouraging economic development in poverty-stricken areas. In Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai, the reward for having only one child is 3,000 yuan (US$387), payable in a lump sum. People aged over 60 with one child or two daughters are given 600 yuan (US$78) every year.

In Hongqi Township in Haikou City, Hainan Island, payments made to sterilized couples with two daughters or couples who have agreed to abide by the one-child policy can be as high as 6,500 yuan (US$838).

2. Taking the softer approach

Moving away from enforcing mandatory orders, several rural population development service centers have decided to employ a softer more human approach. Private discussion sessions are organized for women of childbearing age during which family planning officers advise on issues such as reproduction and marriage. Other services are being developed as well.For example, we learned that in Dunhuang City, Gansu, information collectors must make at least three visits to women who have recently given birth to provide them with reproduction-related information and services.

3. Expanding scope of population and family planning network

An example of this expansion can be found with the Gansu Food and Medicine Inspection Bureau. The bureau encourages family planning information-collectors to undertake part-time work inspecting food in rural areas. In future, the extra work could include medicine inspection. In some other places, counties and townships use the population and family planning network as an information platform that is accessible to all rural residents.

(China (Hainan) Institute for Reform and Development and translated by China Development Gateway December 20, 2007)