The Reaffirmation of the One-Child Policy The government announced that the population would exceed 1.1 billion in the middle of April 1989. The Bureau then attacked the rural wish for large families and especially many sons. It cracked down and instituted new measures to bring down the population growth. This included effective educational campaign; the enforcement of compulsory education; strict rules on the allowable age for births, marriages and the number of children; fines for exceeding allowable birth limit; implementation of the old-age pension system; and the provision of sufficient medical and technological means for birth control operation, especially for people in rural outlying and backward districts.

The Future for China's Population Situation China has a fairly young population. Just over a third of the population was under 15 years of age in 1982, which was proportionately higher than any countries of the Western or Eastern Europe, or any of the other advanced industrial countries of the West or Japan in the early 1980s. Another problem is that the life expectancies has risen from 24 in the 1929--1931 era, about 35 in 1949, to almost 69 in 1981. Health services have improved, mortality rates have declined, life expectancy have dramatically increased and China has a younger population.