A prosperous agricultural co-operative of households with fewer births
China Population Today 10(2): 17-18
1993
PMID: 12286982 Document Number: 341759
To respond to concerns about old-age support among rural Chinese who practice family planning (FP) and have an only child or 2 daughters, an agricultural cooperative was established in a rural village in 1991. Several of these cooperatives now thrive and foster "get rich quick" schemes, strengthen their members' resolve to practice FP, and inspire others to do likewise. The cooperatives follow 4 economic strategies top enrich their members. Companies are established which correspond to the predominant occupation of the members. For example, in an area of chicken farms, the company specialized in buying chicks and feed and in helping members realize good prices for their products. Cooperatives also contract for the use of local resources (cultivated land, fishing ponds, factories, or mills) and then subcontract the work to the members with the profit divided in the members' favor. A third strategy is to develop self-reliance by giving members priority in receiving loans and helping them to acquire skills and information for various projects (e.g. growing mulberry trees or yams). Finally, some cooperatives run collectively owned businesses like bottle cap factories. China now has 30 such cooperatives running 266 projects with 1,249 household members, of which 70% have an only child or 2 daughters. By the end of 1992, the chinese cooperatives generated an estimated profit of 1.6 million YUAN. Parents who once desired a son are now content with increasing their wealth through cooperative participation. The village of Nonglian, where the first cooperative began, had only planned births for the first time in 1991, and the birth rate in the surrounding county declined from 21.7/1000 in 1990 to 14.16/1000 in 1991.