ld to do so. In China's cities and towns where family planning was introduced earlier and the economic, cultural, educational, public health and social security conditions are better, the overwhelming majority of couples of child-bearing age who are pleased with a small family have responded to the government's call and volunteered to have only one child. In 1990, of the non-agricultural population in China's urban localities, the total fertility rate of women dropped to 1.26, or 1.05 lower than the nation's average figure. In the countryside, the total fertility birth rate of women was 2.8.
China is a multi-ethnic country, the population of the national minorities making up about 8 percent of the country's total. To raise the economic and educational levels of the national minority areas and improve the life quality of the population, since the early 1980s the Chinese government has also advocated family planning in the areas inhabited by national minorities, except for Tibet and sparsely populated minority areas. The concrete policies are worked out by the national minority autonomous areas and the relevant provinces and autonomous regions according to specific local conditions. In general, a couple in agricultural and pastoral areas is allowed to have two children; and a more flexible policy is adopted to farmers and herdsmen with actual difficulties. Since the founding of New China, the population growth rate of the national minorities has been not only higher than that before Liberation, but also higher than that of the Han people in the corresponding period. The total population of the national minorities increased from 35 million in 1953 to 91.32 million in 1990. Between 1982 and 1990 after the practice of family planning in the areas inhabited by minority people, the population of the national minorities increased by 35.81 percent, or 3.27 times the growth of the Han population in the same period.
The state has imposed no specific requirements on Tibet in family planning. In 1985, the People's Government of the Tibet Autonomous Region, in view of the actual population growth there, began to advocate family planning among Tibetan cadres, workers and staff, encouraging each couple to voluntarily space two births at reasonable intervals. Among the broad masses of farmers and herdsmen, the government has mainly educated them in child-bearing knowledge, advocated healthier birth and child-rearing practices, improved health care for women and children, and provided contraceptives and birth control technical services to those who volunteer to practise birth control. No policy restrictions have ever been imposed on the number of births in the agricultural and pastoral areas. The fourth national population census in 1990 revealed that Tibetan people in the Tibet Autonomous Region numbered 2.0967 million, making up 95.48 percent of the total population in Tibet.
China encourages fertile married couples to select contraceptive methods of their own accord under the guidance of the state; and offers various preferential treatments in daily life, work and many other aspects to families who volunteer to have only one child, helps them to solve difficulties in their lives and work and creates conditions for them to become better off as soon as possible. Assessments are imposed on multi-birth families to enable society to bring up their children. This represents both a restriction on having too many childbirths and an obligation of those responsible to pay a certain compensation to society. Assessments for this purpose are made according to local legislation, but the amounts thus collected must in no way affect the family's basic livelihood and their needs in keeping up production and management. All funds so collected will be used to further family planning.
Practice has proved that China's current policy on family planning conforms to the fundamental interests of the people throughout the country; meanwhile it also takes into account part of the people's wishes and attitudes. Hence the policy has won understanding and support f