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- <text id=92TT0439>
- <title>
- Mar. 02, 1992: World Notes:China
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Mar. 02, 1992 The Angry Voter
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 35
- World Notes
- CHINA
- Stretching Output
- </hdr><body>
- <p> At a Beijing cotton mill, workers have a problem: the factory
- quota of 10 free condoms a month--for married employees only--is not sufficient for their bedtime needs. In fact, the
- world's most populous society is facing a crisis of condoms.
- China's 7 million users, more than double the number of eight
- years ago, say there are just not enough prophylactics to go
- around.
- </p>
- <p> China's huge crop of baby boomers, born in the 1960s when
- Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution crippled the nation's
- embryonic birth-control program, have reached childbearing age.
- They have also developed looser sexual habits: premarital and
- extramarital sex is rising rapidly.
- </p>
- <p> To meet the need for condoms, population bureaucrats are
- pressing the nation's latex industry to stretch output quickly
- by 100 million, to a peak of 1.5 billion a year. Check off one
- more victory for the forces of supply and demand over central
- planning.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-