China says drive to limit family size is faltering

The world's most populous nation admitted it is losing the critical battle to control its population growth, hampered by the Chinese family tradition of ''more children, more happiness.''

An editorial in China's official Communist Party newspaper People's Daily said the nation's policy of one child per couple is going unheeded and warned marriages will increase in the 1980s and '90s. It said only about 15 million couples nationwide have pledged to have one baby and only about 100 million women use contraception.