Chinese, deliberate fertility control has long been within the "calculus of conscious choice." China's unusually rapid fertility transition may, therefore, be attributed to the fact that the Chinese people did not require a change in attitude, only the establishment of new goals and institutions, along with the diffusion of effective technologies.

Lee and Wang thus contrast the European fertility transition with the more complex Chinese path. As Malthus would have predicted, the transition in Western European society followed a path from low fertility control to high control, while maintaining a late marriage age. By comparison, fertility transition in most developing countries requires both a postponement of marriage age and fertility. Lee and Wang argue that China, however, followed a path different from that of most developing countries as well as from that of Western Europe. Fertility was originally highly controlled, but with the rise of economic opportunities in the eighteenth century and the deterioration of familial authority in the twentieth century, Chinese fertility control relaxed, resulting in two stages of population growth. The second state of population explosion then generated a collective consciousness and state resolve to renew population control and consequently produced the current family-planning program, which delays the marriage age and increases fertility control.

Lee and Wang conclude that, planning demographic events has always been an important part of Chinese lives. Decisions have always entailed careful considerations of collective needs, whether they are of the Chinese family or of the Chinese state. Rational decision making in this context is a process of negotiation that takes into full consideration hierarchical prerogatives and collective interests. What matters is not just individual preferences, but the person's sex, birth order, and relation to the household head within the family as well as occupation, residence type, and political status in the society.