(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-13 06:59

A 49-year-old farmer Zhoi'ma, a mother of eight in Gonggar county in Shannan prefecture, Tibet autonomous region, is worried about her eldest daughter who has reached marriageable age.

"I'm afraid she might follow suit and give birth to many children," she said. "The more children a family has, the heavier the financial burden."

Zhoi'ma's mother had 13 children but five of them died at a very young age because of poverty and poor medical facilities at that time.

At the age of 20, Zhoi'ma got married and worked hard with her husband so that their lives would not be too difficult.

"But we ended up poor after the children were born. We didn't have enough food for them, let alone sending them to school," she said.

Zhoi'ma said when the eighth child arrived, their biggest problem was to clothe them.

"We saved everything, even an egg, in exchange for money so that we could pay for our children's clothes," she said.

Zhoi'ma's concerns, however, may be unfounded. Most young people today have a different attitude from their elders: they prefer to have fewer children and focus more on health care.

"More women in the rural areas have realized that having too many children may have an adverse effect on the quality of life," Purbu Zhoi'ma, a former official with the region's health department, said.

In 1985, the local government of Tibet issued a directive promoting family planning among Tibetans working in the public sectors and State agencies.

"However, there have been no restrictions on how many children farmers and herdsmen can have," Purbu Zhoi'ma said.

A recent survey conducted among 317 Tibetan women in Lhasa, Xigaze and Nagqu showed that 93 percent of them would prefer to have only two or three children.

Bangsang Zhoi'ma, 31, is a farmer in Lamu village, Dagze town, who has two children. Her son is a third-grader at a primary school and her daughter will go to school next year.

"Our goal is to support our children through university," Bangsang Zhoi'ma said. "If we had more children, we wouldn't be able to live as comfortably as we do now, and our children would not be able to go to university." Mothers and children of farmers and herdsmen enjoy free pre-natal and post-natal care, Purbu Zhoi'ma said.

A report released by the Tibet autonomous regional bureau of statistics early this month, said the death rate for pregnant women had decreased from 5 percent in 1959 to the current 0.4 percent, while the infant mortality rate was down from 45 percent to 0.3 percent.

Tibet's population reached 2.84 million by the end of last year.