This thesis investigates in depth the implementation of family planning regulations in China at the grassroots level with a focus on the period from the 1990s to the end of the 2000s, and the social environment in which such implementation takes place. The main evidence sources were collected during 5 months of fieldwork, and include close observation, in-depth interviews, questionnaires, archival records (secondary and official data), statistical data, and internal reports. Since the 1990s, China has experienced rapid economic development and has also introduced a new democraticudsystem into the village: the village committee election. Thus in addition to the resistance caused by the traditional reproductive culture, these new factors also present themselves as obstacles to the smooth implementation of the family planning regulations. By adopting political science institutionalism theory and a socio-legal research method, this research aims to analyse the factors influencing the grassroots level officials’ implementation in a broad social environment. Following an explanation of the formal and informal organizational settings of the town family planning agency, this thesis also explores the town family planning officials’ degree of autonomy in implementation and the criteria they apply to their own decisionmaking. This thesis argues that family planning implementation in the grassroots rural China has been influenced by the following factors: the formal and informal organizational structures, new democratic system influences, the economic development level, employment conditions, culture and convention, the relationships among various interest groups, and family planning officials’ understandings of their work, as well as the imperfect legal environment. All these factors interact with each other to bring about the complexities and discrepancies in implementation.
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