A Survey On Reproductive Intention And Behavior Of The Rural Residents Of Handan And Xingtai Areas In Hebei Province

The area of Handan and Xingtai is one of the regions which have higher level of economic development in Hebei. As far as the writer is concerned, however, its total fertility rate is generally at the high state of more than the level that the policy requires. Known from the investigation about the reproductive intention and behavior of the rural region population in Handan-Xingtai area: under the severe family planning policy of "one child and a half", the average number of children in a family in overall samples in this region is 1.83, basically given priority to birth the two children. The average intended number of children of overall samples is 2.04. It still exists relatively strong gender preference, which has been highly relevant to local firmly traditional fertility culture and birth ideas which is the consequence that is influenced by general mood of the society in which the social factors have the dominant position.However. the various influence factors of reproductive intention and behavior have interaction; the influence of the level of social and economic development on reproductive behavior becomes more and more important. Coupled with the factor of policy, it acts on the factor of society to constraint and guide local fertility behavior and reproductive intention, which gradually attains a balance: the childbirth behavior of people in rural areas of Handan-Xingtai is more "modern". Neither do they pursuit the quantity of birth blindly, nor is the fertility purposes to meet the demand of labor anymore. people begin to divert attention from the number of children as ago increasingly to the balance of gender. The investigation of the reproductive intention and behavior shows: "Intended number of children for two children and the sons and daughters" constitutes main body of reproductive intention of rural area people in Handan-Xingtai today.Through this survey of the rural areas of Handan-Xingtai knows that the function of policy gradually weakens and the influence of the level of social and economic development on reproductive behavior becomes more and more important. Both of them do work after meeting the demand of reproduce which is decided by traditional fertility ideas. It is more suitable to correspond with the demand of reproduction of people to gradually adjust the "two children" family planning policy in Handan-Xingtai, and can reduce the costs of execution of family planning policy also, accelerating the process which relieve the people from focusing on the number of birth and convert to pay more attention on the balance of gender of birth. The reality of Handan-Xingtai indicate that adjust measures to local conditions, base on a large number of scientific empirical researches, to implement the "two children" family planning policy, not only does not cause substantial population bounce, but also avail to improve the execution environment of family planning and to modify current situation of the abnormal high sex ratios .