and social development. Compared with 1970, in 1994 the birth rate dropped from 33.43 per thousand to 17.7 per thousand; the natural growth rate, from 25.83 per thousand to 11.21 per thousand; and the total fertility rate of women, from 5.81 to around 2. Now, China's urban population has basically accomplished the change-over to the population reproduction pattern characterized by low birth rate, low death rate and low growth; and the rural population is currently in this process of change-over. According to statistics supplied by the United Nations, China's population growth rate has already been markedly lower than the average level of other developing countries. According to calculation by experts, if China had not implemented family planning but had all along kept the birth rate at the level of the early 1970s, its population would possibly have passed the 1.5 billion mark by now. Over the past two decades and more, China's promotion of family planning has created a population environment conducive to reform and opening to the outside world and socioeconomic development as well as the population conditions for safeguarding the survival and development of China.
2. Family planning has promoted the change of people's concepts regarding marriage, birth and family.
Since the implementation of the policy of family planning in China, profound changes have been taking place in people's concepts of marriage, birth and family along with the reform and opening to the outside world as well as socio-economic development; the traditional ideas of "early marriage and early births," "more children, greater happiness," and "looking up on men and down on women" are being discarded by more and more people at the child-bearing ages. Late marriage and late births, fewer and healthier births, viewing male and female children as the same, establishing happy, perfect and harmonious small families and seeking a modern, scientific and civilized way of life have become an irresistible trend of the times. The rate of early marriage for women has come down and their average age at first marriage has gone up. In 1992, the proportion of women entering first marriage before the age of 20 dropped to 12.9 percent of the total number of firstmarriage women. In 1970, women's average age at first marriage was 20.2 years, while in 1993 it was 22.67 years, up 2.47 years. The family size has become gradually smaller and nucleus family is becoming the major form of modern Chinese families. According to China's fourth national census, the average size of families in 1990 was 3.96 persons, 0.88 person less than the 4.84 persons in 1971. The major reason for the reduction of family size is a reduction in the number of births. Compared with 1970, of the babies born in 1993 the first-birth rate and second-birth rate increased from 20.7 percent and 17.1 percent to 61.3 percent and 27.5 percent respectively, and the multiple-birth rate dropped from 62.2 percent to 11.2 percent. By 1994, a total of 46.76 million couples had volunteered to give birth to only one child throughout the country, accounting for 20.3 percent of the total married women at child-bearing age. At the current level of economic development and living standards in China, the reduction of family size and fewer children to support have obviously reduced the economic burden and the burden of family chores on the families and improved their quality of life.
3. Family planning has created favourable conditions for the development of China's economy and the improvement of people's living standards.
In vigorously promoting family planning, China strives to make the speed of population growth much lower than the speed of growth in the gross national product, thus gradually raising the per-capita level. A part from the reform and opening to the outside world, family planning has been a factor for the sustained economic development of China and the steady improvement of its people's living standards over the past ten years and more. From 1952 to 1978, China's gross domestic product (GDP) increased 4.7-fo