Since 1991, a second decline in fertility rates has appeared in China1
(Qiao 1996),
marking the first time that fertility rates have reached a level under the replacement rate,
about 2.1 for the total fertility rate (TFR). They are approaching the level that the national
population policy expected, i.e., TFR of 1.6 (Qiao 1999). There are lots of implications
with regard to the fertility decline. How could the fertility decline without an explicit
“tightening-up” of national policy? Had the fertility decline been caused by a decrease in
women’s reproductive health? Did the reproductive health of women improve as fertility
declined? The objective of this paper is to estimate the overall number of induced abortions,
calculate cohort induced abortion frequency, explore the impact of a child’s sex and the
number of previous children on induced abortions, and find out the effects on some
characteristics of women, such as gestation period, prior to an induced abortion.