Birth-spacing patterns in Huaning County, Yunnan Province, PRC: is the adoption of a small family norm sustainable?

China's family planning programs have emphasized delayed marriage and longer spacing between births. Since 1970, the fertility has declined from 6 to 1.8 births and the mean age at first marriage has gone up but the recommended spacing intervals have not been fully realized. Despite the fertility decline it is being debated among scholars whether China has completed a sustainable demographic transition or not, especially in rural areas. The aim of this study was to analyze trends in the timing and patterns of marriage and childbearing in relation to successive family planning policies. A cluster random sample of 1,336 women aged 15-64 at the time of the survey (2000) was selected in one rural county in Yunnan province. Life-table techniques were used to analyze the cumulative proportion of women marrying and having a certain number of births. Cox's hazard regression model was used to estimate the effects of various covariates on the "hazard" for a woman to have a second birth. Our findings demonstrate how childbearing patterns have changed in the direction of delayed marriage, a decreased interval between first marriage and first child, and significantly longer spacing between the first and second child. This transformation of childbearing patterns corresponds well with the requirements of the policies. Considering the characteristics of Yunnan, it seems likely that the changing fertility behavior has been more influenced by a strictly enforced family planning policy than by societal changes leading to the adoption of a new, smaller family norm.