Super-optimizing is a reasoning process whereby one seeks to arrive at conclusions to disputes or dilemmas which can enable all sides to come out ahead of their best initial expectations. In the context of Chinese population policy, this involves looking for the causes and remedies of having multiple children, especially in rural areas. Those carses and remedies inc1ude providing productive income for the elderly, reducing child mortality, increasing the value of female chi1dren, and increasing the opportunities for rural children to go to col1ege. That kind of approcah can more than satisfv the conservative desire to have smaller families and the liberal desire to have reproductive freedom. Such an approach is likely to result in better policy-making than emphasizing ideological criteria, technological fixes, or purely monethary, incentives.