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PIP: Taiwan's family planning program is directed largely to young high fertility women in order to set a population increase of 1.7% by 1981. Laws are being revised to extend payments to civil servants with small families, permit children to have their mother's family name to minimize son preference, and liberalize abortion laws. The program promotes late marriage, birth spacing, and early contraceptive use by extending home visits by clinic personnel and by educational activities. Oral contraceptive usage has continued to decline although condom usage has increased and 10% of the women are annually recruited as IUD acceptors. 40,000 sterilizations have been performed in 1976 and 1977, but only 9% are male sterilizations. The program has reached about 74% of the 2.2 million eligible couples of which 63% of the married women aged 22-39 practice birth control. The crude birth rate did, however, increase to 25.9/1000 in 1976, but the increase was attributed to the Year of the Dragon, regarded as an auspicious time for births. The 1978 Taiwan budget increased 31% from 1977 to $3.66 million to subsidize orals and condoms and expand sterilization programs.
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