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8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
1/11
Population
Birth Rates and Fertility in China: How Credible are RecentData? (Population, 4, 1998)Isabelle Attané, Minglei Sun
Citer ce document Cite this document :
Attané Isabelle, Sun Minglei. Birth Rates and Fertility in China: How Credible are Recent Data? (Population, 4, 1998). In:
Population, an English selection, 11ᵉ année, n°1, 1999. pp. 251-260.
http://www.persee.fr/doc/pop_0032-4663_1999_hos_11_1_18514
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8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
2/11
BIRTH RATES
AND
FERTILITY IN CHINA
How Credible are
Recent
Data?
The
question of the
reliability
of China's
population
statistics, which
has
often
been discussed in the past
(Bianco,
1981; Stôcklin, 1992), remains a topical one.
How credible are the official data
published
at regular intervals? How are they to
be interpreted when one set of
figures contradicts
another?
We shall first take the
year 1989 -the
last one for which data from
several
different
sources
were
available
-
to
illustrate
some
of
the
contradictions, and
demonstrate how incomplete the statistics derived from registration data are.
Second,
we
shall
show that, although the demographic data published for the 1980s are
relatively
reliable,
the
quality is considerably worse
for the 1990s: the surveys
conducted in 1992 and
1995
leave much
to
be desired, particularly with respect
to
fertility
and birth reporting,
to
the
extent that
recent
population developments
are
obscured.
I. - The
sources
of demographic
data
In
China, three
State organs are in charge of
collecting population data:
the
Ministry
of
Public
Security
(Gong'anbu),
the
State Statistical
Bureau
(Guojia
tongji
ju) and
the State
Family Planning Commission (Guojia
jihua shengyu weiyuanhui).
The vital registration system,
based
on household registration,
was
set
up
in the
mid-1950s.
The
urban registers are held by the police commissioners (paichu
suo)
in the towns (zhen) or residential districts ijiedao) and the rural ones
by
the local
government officials
in
the townships (xiang).
The
registration
data
collected in
these
level-4 administrative units (townships,
towns, residential
districts) are
forwarded to
each
of the higher levels in turn:
first
the Public
Security
Bureaux in
the level-3
counties
and municipalities, then those in the
provinces,
provincial-level
municipalities and autonomous regions (see Figure
1).
The
national
data are
finally
centralized
by
the Ministry of Public Security,
who
compile the
registration
statistics
(huji), some of
which are
published in the
Chinese
Statistical Yearbook
(Zhongguo
tongji
nianjian)
and
the
Chinese
Population Yearbook
(Zhongguo
renkou
tongji
nian-
jian).
The
State
Statistical Bureau (SSB) is in charge of organizing the censuses
(renkou
pucha) and demographic surveys
(renkou
chouyang diaocha).
Since
the
founding of the
People's
Republic of China in
1949,
four censuses
(1953, 1964,
1982 and
1990) and
two
intercensal
surveys
(1987 and 1995)
have
been taken. In
order to
offset the growing deficiencies of the
vital
registration system, in 1982
the SSB drew a
sample
of 500,000 individuals
to
serve
as
reference
population
for
an annual survey (wushiwan
chouyang
diaocha). The population estimates published
by
the SSB since then have generally
been based
on these
surveys.
Population:
An English Selection,
11, 1999,
251-260
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
3/11
252 I.
ATTANE, SUN
Minglei
LEVEL 1:
Province
LEVEL 2:
Prefecture
LEVEL 3:
County
LEVEL 4:
Township
LEVEL 5:
Village
3 municipalities
(zhi xia
shi)
22
provinces
(sheng)
5
autonomous
regions
(zizhi qu)
Municipalities
(diji shi)
Prefectures
(diqu)
Urban districts
(shi xia
qu)
Counties
(xian)
Residential
districts
(jiedao)
Municipalities
(xianji shi)
Towns
(zhen)
Townships
(xiang)
Neighbourhood committeesjumin
weiyuanhui) Village
committees
cunmin weiyuanhui)
Figure 1. - China's administrative structure
N.B. In addition to
these
30
top-level administrative
units, two
more
were added in
1997:
the municipality of
Chongqing
and the special administrative region of
Hong
Kong
There is an organism
in
charge of family planning at every level of the
administrative
structure. The
State Family
Planning
Commission (SFPC)
presides over
all. Then there
are
Family Planning
Commissions (jihua shengyu weiyuanhui) at
levels 1,
2
and 3
(province {sheng
ji),
prefecture (diji)
and county (xianji)).
Below
that,
at the township level (xiang
ji),
Family Planning Bureaux
(jihua
shengyu ban-
gongshi) have been set up.
Finally,
at the base level - neighbourhood and village
committees - we find, in the
countryside,
small groups in charge of Family Planning
in the villages (сип jihua shengyu lingdao
xiaozu)
and, in urban areas,
Neighbourhood
Committee Family Planning Bureaux
(jumin weiyuanhui jihua shengyu
ban-
gongshi). It
is
at this
root level
that the
persons-in-charge
supervise the
data
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
4/11
BIRTH
RATES AND FERTILITY IN CHINA 253
collection (registration of marriages and births) and compile current statistics on
the family planning programme
(proportions of late
and
early
marriages, proportions
of
planned
and unplanned births *, contraceptive prevalence). The information,
having
been channelled
through
the
different
levels
to
the
State Family Planning
Commission, provides the
material
from which the national and provincial family
planning statistics are established each
year.
Some of these are published in the
Chinese
Family Planning Yearbook
(Zhongguo jihua
shengyu
nianjian), in which
the SFPC
also presents
population
size
and mortality data
which
it does not
collect
itself, but receives from the Ministry of Public Security.
The
SFPC also organizes nationwide surveys on fertility and birth control
(Quanguo shengyu lu chouyang diaocha, Quanguo shengyu jieyu chouyang diao-
cha). The
first was
held in 1982, followed
by
two others in 1988 and
1992.
II.
The
deficiencies
of
the registration
data
A comparison of the data for 1989
derived
from these different sources reveals
substantial
discrepancies. While the
State
Family Planning
Commission
published
a figure of
1,101.17
million inhabitants at the
end
of 1989 and the Ministry of
Public Security (MPS) a similar one, 1,1 03.56(2), the
census
data yielded a
population
of 1,127.00 million
(Figure 2).
There were 24.62 million live births in 1989
according
to
the
1990 census,
but only 18.07 according
to vital
registration data
(MPS) and 16.71 according to family planning statistics
(SFPC):
in other words,
one-quarter (26.6 ) of the
births
enumerated in the census were not
registered by
the MPS and one-third (32.1 ) were missing from family planning statistics. The
corresponding
rates
of natural increase in 1989 are
9.8 per 1,000
from family
planning
statistics and
11.0
per
1,000
from vital registration,
versus 14.7
per 1,000
from
the
census,
while
the
birth
rates
are
15.3, 16.5 and
21.0
per
1,000 respectively.
Under China's current family planning policy, couples must comply with a
number
of rules -
minimum
age at marriage and parenthood, family size restrictions - or
be
punished for
having transgressed them, together with
the
official in charge of
seeing
that the
rules
are
respected. Such
penalties
can no doubt
explain the
vast
scale
of
under-reporting. For the
year 1989,
the family planning
statistics recorded
only
269,000 early marriages (with
under-age
brides) and
2.6
million
unplanned
births,
while the 1992 survey gave
2.6
and 11 million respectively: a
coverage
loss
of
almost 90% of early marriages and 75% of unplanned
births
in the
SFPC
registration
data (Figure 3). Furthermore, the
1992
survey data
are also
challenged, as we
shall
see, meaning that the under-reporting may
have
been even more acute.
The higher the birth
order,
the less likely it is to
be
authorized, and the more
likely it
is to
miss being registered. When we compare the family planning statis-
tics(3) for 1989 to the 1990 census
data
for that year,
we
observe the following
С Late marriages occur when the spouses
were
at least three years older than the
minimum legal age, and early marriages when they
were
under that age, which is 20 for
women
and
22 for
men.
Planned births
are
those which
had been authorised beforehand.
2) We note that although the population numbers published by the SFPC are received
from the MPS, the
figure
published by the
latter
was 2 million higher. The
difference
is
apparently
due to
the fact that the data the MPS
communicates to
the SFPC are based on
vital
registration statistics, while
ts
own figures are
estimated from the annual 500,000 sample
survey.
*3) The birth statistics published by the
SFPC
are broken down by order only, so un-
der-registration cannot be estimated by sex.
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
5/11
254
I. ATTANE, SUN
Minglei
Population
size (in
millions)
I.I3U
1,100
1,050
1,000
SFPC
ital
registration
ensus
INED
2998
Figure 2. -
Population
size at
end
of 1989, according
to
different
sourcesin millions)
Family
planning statistics
1992
survey
Figure 3. -
Women
married before the legal age of 20 and 'unplanned'
births,
1989,
from
different
sources
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
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BIRTH
RATES
AND
FERTILITY
IN
CHINA 255
Births
( in
millions)
25
10-
5
Figure
4. - Births of different orders in 1989, according to 1990 census
data
and
SFPC
registration
data
shortfall: the
births
registered by the
SFPC
represent
99.0 of
first births, but only
56.4%
of second
births
and
18.0% of third
and higher order births (Figure 4).
Vital registration
coverage
is
generally
considered
to
have
been
good
from
the late
1950s
to the late
1970s. But
the quality of demographic statistics
based
on
registration
has
since suffered severe setbacks
with
the dismantling of the
people s
communes
in the early 1980s, and the gradual
crumbling
away
of the structures
whereby
the State controlled the
population. The
decay
of
the registration system
has
many
facets: constantly
swelling internal
migration making
it
ever
more difficult
to follow
up
the
growing
numbers of
movers,
loss of
State control, negligence in
reporting of
information, couples purposely
concealing an unauthorized
marriage
or unplanned birth to avoid
being
penalized,
officials
doctoring statistics to reach
the required family planning targets...
The national
surveys
and censuses are
not,
however, without their own flaws.
According
to
the
postcensal
survey,
the
1990
census
under-enumerated
the
population
by
0.7 per 1,000
and births by
1.03 per
1,000, but such
rates
are suspiciously
low. Yet this
census is
incontestably the most
reliable source
in recent years: the
latest
surveys
show
blatant
deficiencies.
Since the last
population census
in
1990,
China has taken
two
demographic
surveys:
a national fertility survey
held
in Autumn
1992 on
a sample population
of
385,000,
of whom just
under 80,000
women of reproductive ages, and an inter-
censal survey in 1995
on a one-per-cent
population sample (12,366,955 or, including
the military, 12,565,584).
The two surveys
had different
targets:
the first was
designed
to collect detailed information on couples' behaviour as
regards
marriage
and reproduction
- nuptiality,
fertility, contraception, compliance with birth control
measures - while
the
second
was
designed to
take stock of the
population between
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
7/11
256
I.
ATTANE, SUN
Minglei
the censuses of 1990 and
2000 -population size,
sex/age distribution,
marital
structure households,
nuptiality,
fertility, mortality,
migration
and
housing
conditions.
Thus, both
surveys
contained
questions
on fertility that would supposedly capture
recent trends.
III. - The 1992 survey
The provisional findings of the 1992 fertility survey taken
by
the
State
Family
Planning Commission indicated a spectacular drop in the period total fertility rate
(TFR), from 2.25 in 1990 (census data) to 1.65 in 1991 and 1.52 in 1992. Obviously
unrealistic and a
sign
of the
survey's
shortcomings, these findings were immediately
corrected
by the
SFPC.
A 13% under-reporting
rate
was applied
to
the
raw birth
data - without any explanation
as
to the choice
of
this rate - which brought TFR
to
1.87 in
1991 and
1.72 in
1992, and the birth rates to
19.3
and 18.1 per 1,000
respectively. These official figures
indicate
a fertility decline which
is
probably
still
overstated, however,
as
we shall now see.
Indeed, an
alternative
adjustment of the survey data
has
been proposed
by
the Chinese demographer Zeng
Yi
(1995), working in
his
personal capacity. It was
based on the
findings of
a special survey the SFPC
organized
in
October 1993
in
32
villages,
in Hebei
and Hubei provinces, to investigate the problem of
under-reported births in the rural areas. Unlike the 1992 survey, the 1993 special survey
used field workers who were not local family planning officials. This
was
designed
to
eliminate the risk
of
officials doctoring the statistics
to
avoid being penalized
if the results in their sector were below par. For the 32 villages, the survey found
that
births
were under-reported
by
a rate of 37.3%.
By assuming that this rate applied to all rural areas, and that the urban rate
was
only
half
as high,
Zeng
Yi
estimated
the
whole-country
under-reporting
rate
was 24.8% in 1991
and
27.5% in
1992,
which
gave an adjusted TFR value of 2.2
in 1991 and 2.1 in 1992 (Table
1).
Table 1.-
djustment of
total fertility
in 1991
and
1992
as estimated from the 1992
survey
1991
1992
1991
1992
Births
registered by
SFPC
(in millions)
(a)
16.971
15.975
TFR
derived
from
(d)
f)
1.65
1.52
Estimated
under-
registration
rate (%)*
(b)
34.62
34.62
Underreport ing
rate
(%)
(e)
24.76
27.51
Births corrected
for under-
registration
(in millions)
(c)
=
(a)/[l-(b)]
25.957
24.403
Adjusted
TFR
g) = (f)/[100-(e)]
2.20
2.10
Births
reported in
1992 survey
(in millions)
(d)
19.530
17.690
Under-reporting
rate, 1992 survey
(%)
(e)
= [(c)
- (d)]/(c)
24.76
27.51
*
Based
on the
1993
special survey.
Source:
Zeng Yi (1995)
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
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BIRTH
RATES AND FERTILITY IN CHINA 257
IV. - The 1995 survey
The first results of the 1995 intercensal survey were published in
April
1996
by
the
State Statistical
Bureau
and
the full
whole-country
results
were
published
in January
1997
by the Population Survey Bureau (Quangguo renkou
chouyang
diaocha
bangongshi)
in
a volume entitled 1995 nian quanguo 1%
renkou chouyang
diaocha ziliao
(National
Data from the One-Per-Cent 1995
Sample
Survey
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
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258
I. ATTANÉ, SUN Minglei
Table 3.-
Crude
and adjusted
total
fertility
rates
1989-95,
from
different sources
1989
1990
1991
1992
1995
1990 census
2.30
2.25
1992 survey
Raw
data
2.24
2.04
1.65
1.52
Adjusted
data
2.20
2.10
1995 survey
Raw
data
1.46
Adjusted
data
1.85
children
per woman. In other words, the
officially
adjusted 1995
survey
data would
still
understate
Chinese
fertility by
at least 15 percentage points.
The different TFR estimates
published
for recent years
are
shown in Tables
2
and
3.
V.
-
A
further decline of
fertility?
After
the
sharp decline of
the 1970s (TFR fell from
5.4
in 1971 to
2.8
in
1979)
and the relative
stability
of the 1980s (around 2.4 throughout the decade),
Chinese
fertility is
apparently
declining
anew.
It seems likely that the TFR
values
have been in the region of 2 children
per woman
since 1991 (Figure 5), and
this
low level is hardly
surprising. Indeed, since the mid-1980s more
than
one-third
of
the
population
have been
subjected to
the one-child family policy, and even if
it
is not totally respected,
this
norm does predominate. Supposing that the women
living
in
the
cities
and
towns
now have around
1.5
children on
average,
the
women
living in the
counties
would have
around
2.4, a figure which, given the
differences
between authorized
and actual family size,
is
plausible(6). A
slight
rise in age at
marriage'7'
since 1990 and wider birth
spacing may
also
explain
part
of
the
present
decrease in the
period fertility rates.
Another
factor
no
doubt
contributing to the decline
is
the growth
of
rural-
urban
migration. With the
easing
of restrictions since the early
1980s,
and more
especially since the early
1990s,
many
young
people can
now
look for
work
in the
towns and cities, and be authorized to live
there
- at least temporarily - provided
their employer
can
settle the administrative formalities related to their residence.
Most of
these young
migrants
are single or move
alone, leaving
their families
behind, and
this
isolation
has a definite
impact
on fertility
timing.
Xie (1997)
describes
the
case
of
companies
located
in
Zhejiang
which
need
more workers
than the
local
labour force
can
supply; they therefore employ migrant workers, most
of
whom
are women, since the companies are principally engaged in light or
textile
industry.
He states that these
women
generally want to earn
some
money
before
they get
The
family
planning policy authorizes
an
estimated 80% of rural women
to
have
two
children,
and each year roughly
40%
of births in the countryside are not authorized.
7) Women's
mean
age
at
first
marriage,
calculated
from
the observed proportions
single
was 22.1 in
1990 (census data)
and
22.7
in
1995
(intercensal
survey data). We note,
however, that
for this
indicator
to reflect the situation
with accuracy,
both the
intensity and
timing of marriage must be
stable. Since only
the
first of these conditions
is fulfilled, it
can
only provide
an
approximation.
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
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BIRTH
RATES AND FERTILITY IN CHINA 259
Children per
woman
7
2
1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994
Year
Figure 5.
-TFR trends in China, 1970-95
Sources: 1970-90:
1982
and
1988
fertility surveys,
1990
census;
1991-95 (all-China)
and
1988-95
urban and
rural):
interpolations
based
on
adjusted 1992 and 1995
survey
data
married,
and that
many
of them delay their
wedding
until they have put
aside
enough
money
for their
trousseau. The
new socio-economic context
created
by
the reforms
(more widespread
internal
migration, generalization of
women's labour
force
participation,
higher
costs of childrearing) may,
therefore,
be contributing to a
postponement of marriage and parenthood, and thereby be
reducing
period
fertility.
However,
the
question is
whether this
downward
trend
will
continue
in the future,
in
which case there
will be
a
real
reduction
of completed
family
size, or
whether
the
pattern will
alter once the
Chinese
population
has
adapted to
its new
social and
economic conditions.
Isabelle
Attané,
INED,
Sun
Minglei, Research student,
INED
8/19/2019 Birth Rates and Fertility in China
11/11
260
I. ATTANÉ, SUN
Minglei
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