During the past four decades China has experienced a dramatic fertility transition. Her national total fertility rate (TFR) was approximately 5·8 in the mid 1950s and remained at this level until the end of the 1960s. Since the early 1970s fertility transition has accelerated. The national TFR declined from 5·7 in 1970 to 3·6 in 1975, and down further to 2·31 in 1980. In other words, China’s fertility decreased by more than 50 per cent in only one decade. More recently, China’s fertility rose slightly, due mainly to a relaxation of birth control measures and a large marriage boom. Nevertheless, China’s fertility remains at a low level.

Since 1978 science and technology (S&T) have been officially seen as the motors of future growth and modernization of the Chinese economy. Much effort has been devoted to the formulation and implementation of policy to reform the S&T sector to ensure that it will contribute much more than it has in the past to social and economic development. One objective of the reforms has been to mobilize under-utilized resources to expand research and develop ment (R&D) activities. It is in this context that policy-makers in China started to focus their attention on the higher education sector (HES). The sector's potential role as an important R&D performer has been progressively articulated over time in breadth and depth as policy-makers’ concerns have expanded, to examine the relationship between training S&T personnel and scientific research in the context of the rapid changes wrought by the “new technological revolution” (xin jishu geming).

In the 1920s and 1930s intellectuals and writers led the attacks on the tyranny of the Chinese family and the power of patrilineal authority. Their essays and fictional works, particularly such novels as Ba Jin’s Family (Jia), were avidly read by a younger, radicalized and iconoclastic generation. By the late 1940s and after Liberation in 1949, however, mainland leftist and communist writers had retreated from attacks on the family, emphasizing instead its centrality in social life. Two major reasons may account for this. The Chinese Communist Party, needing the peasantry’s support in its climb to and final assumption of power, chose the road of reforming obvious abuses rather than assaulting family and patriarchal institutions. The second reason served to reinforce the Party’s concern. After decades of turmoil, conquest and war, writers envisaged peace as order and as a return to familiar ways of life. In their short stories and novels, socialist transformation, therefore, consisted not of the disruption of family life and patrilineal authority, but of the reconstitution of the family, now stripped of its abusive features.

Since the signing of Sino–British Joint Declaration in September 1984 Hong Kong has entered a transitional phase, preparing for its ultimate return to China in 1997. This transition is characterized by a drastic redistribution of power and authority, and a realignment of social forces. Most significantly, a dualistic power structure has emerged, signifying a rapid decline of traditional British colonial dominance and a corresponding rise in the influence of the People's Republic of China in Hong Kong.

The employees of this profitable and technologically advanced factory seem satisfied with their relatively high salaries, bonuses and allowances, and pleased with the extensive benefits and services given by the factory. In particular, the bonus system of this factory offers factory-wide, production-group and individual bonuses that seem to offer adequate incentives for the improvement of both productivity and quality, two key goals in the present nationwide economic reform. The possibility and means of improving status and income through study, hard work and innovation have been effective in encouraging many employees to apply their efforts and talents to their jobs and to study after work in the hope of qualifying for higher education in the case of technical workers, and for higher technical and language proficiency levels in the case of technicians and engineers.

The relatively high standard of living of this factory's employees seems to have dampened outspoken criticism of its leaders and policies. Continued increases in remuneration and benefits should keep the employees satisfied in the immediate future.