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China has long been a big agricultural country with a massive rural population. Considering its vast size, high rates of growth and strong preference for boys over girls, this population presents special challenges to efforts to implement the country’s family planning policies. The book traces the government’s fertility policies since the founding of the new republic, and shows how they have evolved to suit the diverse and changing needs of the rural population, which has benefitted greatly from these policies. Policy responses to such notable rural demographic developments since the beginning of reform as persistently high sex ratio at birth, rapid aging and massive migration into urban areas received special attention. The author argues that what we can learn about these policies should help us better deal with newer and even more difficult rural population issues the country has had to face over the last two decades.