Wang Xiuluan, a 68-year-old farmer in central China's Henan Province, and her 70-year-old husband never expected a reward for a decision they made 30 years ago.

Like many others in China's countryside, Wang and her 70-year-old husband tilled the soil for most of their life. With only two daughters and no son in a rural economy that depended so much on male labor in the 1970s, the couple chose not to have another child, even though China's family planning policy allowed them to do so.

The decision has paid off. Starting from 2004, China began to implement a pilot project of "rewarding some rural households practicing family planning." Wang and her husband were among the first couples in the country to get two deposit books, each writing a yearly reward of 600 yuan (72 US dollars).

"Six hundred yuan is very important to us. It almost covers our basic expenses," said Wang's husband Wang Qingchen, whose basic monthly spending is about 70 yuan (eight dollars).

Last year, like the old couple, more than 310,000 farmers in 10 cities of five provinces where the pilot project was launched received around 200 million yuan (24 million dollars) in cash reward for having only one child or two daughters in their families.

The pilot project is expected to be extended to 23 provinces this year and cover the whole country next year.

According to the new family planning policy, rural couples with only one child or two daughters become eligible for a cash reward of no less than 600 yuan each year when they turn 60 years old. The reward will last for the rest of their lives.

Granting financial reward to farmers who endorse family planning marks a major change in China's population-control policy from being purely "punitive" to also "rewarding," said Pan Guiyu, vice-director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC).

China's family planning policy launched in the late 1970s used to harshly fine those who violated it. It has helped check China's rapid population growth and reduced the country's population by an estimated 300 million. Demographers say that the country's 1.3- billion-population day, which fell on Jan. 6 this year, would have come four years earlier if it were not for the policy.

But the policy has also negatively impacted some rural families, which have fallen into poverty for lack of male laborers.

Government figures show that 117 boys are born in China for every 100 girls, while in some rural areas, the ratio is approaching 150 boys for every 100 girls, leading to fears of a huge surplus of unmarried men as well as other social problems.

The new family planning policy featuring cash rewards will not only make rural families practicing family planning benefit economically, but also help curb sexual imbalance as more farmers might be persuaded to abandon the traditional belief that only a son could well support the parents when they turn old, Pan said.

Li Ping, director of the educational, scientific and cultural department of the Ministry of Finance (MOF), said the central government has decided to double the fiscal budget this year to raise the total cash rewards to 400 million yuan (48 million dollars).

"The state will continue to increase the fund as the national economy develops," she said.

At present, central budget covers some 80 percent of the reward allowances paid in China's less developed western regions, while in the better-developed eastern coastal regions all the reward money is paid from the local budgets.

In east China's Guangdong Province, which borders Hong Kong and ranks among the country's richest areas, the local government is paying 960 yuan (115 dollars) a year to every farmer who has only one child or two daughters.

A separation-of-powers mechanism has been set up to guard against corruption in the implementation of the pilot project, under which the NPFPC examines the applicants' qualification, the MOF manages the budget, and local banks, credit cooperatives or post offices transfer the cash rewards directly to the farmers' accounts.

In addition, auditing authorities above the county level will review the project's development every half a year and the public can report anything improper in the process via telephone hotlines.

The new policy to encourage people to bear fewer children has proved to be fruitful. According to Liu Jiuxiang, vice head of Bo' ai County in Henan Province, the number of people applying for the "one-child certificates" has doubled to more than 11,000 since the project was launched last year.

More than 860 couples in the county have decided to give up their right to bear a second child, though the family planning policy allows rural couples whose first child is a girl to give birth to one more.

The pilot project will help China accumulate experience on how to gradually establish a rural social security network, the basis for resolving rural population issues and balancing population growth and socioeconomic development, Pan said.

"The project marks a major shift in China's population control efforts and indicates that China is building an interest-oriented mechanism favorable for families that practice family planning," said Zhang Weiqing, minister in charge of the NPFPC.

(Xinhua News Agency June 4, 2005)