Fertility and Birth Control Among Low Income Chinese Families in Hong Kong.

This article is a report and analysis of research in Hong Kong, undertaken in conjunction with the Hong Kong Family Planning Association, of behavior and beliefs affecting acceptance and use of modern birth control methods. Apart from its substantive findings on these topics, this study is illustrative of a cooperative endeavor ordinarily welcomed by Asian birth control organizations through which the sociology of fertility can be further explored. Lower income urbanized Chinese women in Hong Kong voluntarily participating in a Family Planning program were found to have been highly fertile, as judged by the number of pregnancies to years married, but at the same time to have avoided the practice of infanticide, abortion, and the giving away of children. Among these families, children are desired, but boys rather than girls and in any event not a large family of either boys or girls. The majority say they want no more than three children , but the actual family size exceeded this expressed ideal.