In the late 1970s, just as China was embarking on a sweeping program of post-Mao reforms, it also launched a one-child campaign. This text analyses this great social engineering experiment, drawing on more than 20 years of research.

The collectivization of childbearing -- Jihua shengyu : the origins of birth planning -- Planning population growth : the political economy of state intervention -- The architecture of mobilization -- Two kinds of production : rural reform and the one-child campaign -- The politics of mass sterilization -- Strategies of resistance -- Campaign revivalism and its limits -- Against the grain : the Chinese experience with birth planning.