Only years after its creation, the SFPC had realised the problem of underreporting of births in the routine statistics. However, in the absence of a reliable reference, it was difficult to estimate the extent of underreporting until 1988 when the two-per- thousand survey results were available (Chang 1992). The SFPC statisticians made a detailed comparison between the number of births estimated from the survey and those recorded in the family planning statistics at the provincial level in 1987. The
outcomes were not unexpected but still surprised the SFPC policy makers, because only the statistics from the three metropolitan areas of Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin were basically complete with less than 5 percent underreporting of births. More than half of the 30 provinces underreported more than 30 percent of births; some even underreported more than 40 percent in 1987 (Su 1989).
On 24 October 1988, the official People’s Daily published an article, acknowledging: ‘it has become a fashion to manipulate the family planning statistics across the country’. This article expressed the deep disappointment of the central government and called for improvement in statistics (People's Daily 1988: 3). Nonetheless, the distortion of the family planning statistics in the late 1980s continued in the early 1990s. As mentioned in Chapter 1, this was closely associated with the weakening in program efforts caused by the rural reform and policy modification in 1984. As a result, fertility increased in 1984-87 and then slightly declined in 1988-89 as observed in surveys and the 1990 census, but the number of births recorded in the program statistics showed little change, despite the increase in the absolute number of women at prime reproductive age.
A number of field reports or analyses on specific areas revealed the pattern of underreporting or misreporting of births by local program workers in the program statistics (e.g. Bao 1993; Li 1991; SSB 2002a; Sun and Qing 1993; Wang 1994; Wang 1995; Xie 1990). For example, out-of-plan second and higher-order births were more likely to be unreported. The births from ‘early marriage’ or ‘early childbearing’ were also very likely to be unreported. However, aware of the cost of being detected, local program workers used many strategies to manipulate statistics rather than outright underreporting. They may misreport second or higher-order out- of-plan births as ‘in-plan’ first or second-order births. Like the hukou statistics, the recorded births in the program statistics only refer to newborns, while the non- reported births in previous years are reported as ‘newfound’ children in the current statistical year (Li 1991; Xie 1990). Accordingly, many local program workers intentionally left some current births unreported, but reported them in later years as ‘newfound’ children with the excuse of previous mistakes in statistics (Zeng 1996). This would not affect the assessment of their current performance, and probably would be praised in the future for ‘disclosing’ previous underreporting.
After the 1990 census, the SSB retrospectively estimated the number of births and rectified the previously released annual official estimates. Table 3. 5 shows the comparison of the number of births between the SSB census-adjusted series and the family planning statistics from 1985 to 1989. During this period, the program statistics missed 40.4 million, on average 6.7 million births, or 33.8 percent of births, each year at the national level. During the 1990s, the SFPC directly organised a series of village surveys, which were designed to represent the rural areas in the surveyed provinces. The finding of 35 percent of births being underreported in program statistics in villages of Hebei and Hubei province in 1993 was frequently referred to as first-hand evidence for the argument of data deterioration since the early 1990s. However, even if this represented the average level in all the rural areas, it was likely that the national average extent of underreporting would be lower than 35 percent, given the obviously better quality of the urban statistics. Therefore, it is not safe to argue that the program statistics became worse in the early 1990s.
Table 3.5 Implied extent of underreporting of births in the family planning statistics in China, using the SSB census-based adjusted series as a reference, 1985-1989
Births registered in the program statistics
(millions)
SSB adjusted series based on the 1990 census
(millions) Implied extent of underreporting of births (percent) Year (1) (2) (3)=100*(1-(1)/(2)) 1985 13.93 22.02 36.74 1986 15.98 23.84 32.97 1987 16.55 25.22 34.38 1988 16.15 24.57 34.27 1989 16.71 24.07 30.58 Total 79.32 119.72 33.75
Sources: The SFPC annual birth series are from the SFPC (1986-1991); the SSB 1980s adjusted series are from the SSB (2002a).
It was a little complicated to evaluate the completeness of the family planning statistics in the 1990s in the absence of a reliable reference. Table 3.6 uses two sources to examine the family planning statistics: the 2000 census and the SSB annual official estimates. Using the 2000 census results as a reference, the program
statistics probably underreported 10.57 percent of births from 1991 to 1999 (column 3). Obviously, this comparison is problematic owing to the census undercounts. For example, in the year 1999, the census enumerated only 11.85 million newborns, while the program statistics registered 12.88 million births. An alternative choice is the comparison between the SSB annual series and the family planning statistics. It is necessary to keep in mind that the SSB series had already been upwardly adjusted. This comparison suggests that the family planning statistics probably have underreported 25 to 33 percent of births, on average 27.86 percent from 1991 to 1999 (column 5), as opposed to the SSB official estimates.
Table 3.6 Implied extent of underreporting of births in the family planning statistics in China, using the 2000 census and SSB 1990s annual series as references, 1991-1999
Births registered in the program statistics (millions) Births estimated from the 2000 census (millions) Implied underreporting extent (1) (percent) SSB official estimates (millions) Implied underreporting extent (2) (percent) Year (1) (2) (3)=100*(1-(1)/(2)) (4) (5)=100*(1-(1)/(4)) 1991 16.97 20.87 18.69 22.58 24.84 1992 15.96 19.48 18.07 21.19 24.68 1993 15.70 18.60 15.59 21.26 26.15 1994 15.75 17.09 7.84 21.04 25.14 1995 15.21 17.56 13.38 20.63 26.27 1996 14.55 15.77 7.74 20.67 29.61 1997 13.88 14.96 7.22 20.38 31.89 1998 13.83 14.48 4.49 19.91 30.54 1999 12.88 11.85 -8.69 19.09 32.53 Total 134.73 150.66 10.57 186.75 27.86
Sources: The SFPC annual registration series are taken from Cai and Zhang (2000: 12); the census- estimated series are own calculations based on the census data; and the SSB annual series are from the SSB (2002a).
It has been argued by many demographers that underreporting of births in all population statistics became much more serious because of the program tightening after 1991 (Tan 1998; Zeng 1996; Zhang 1995; Zhang 1997). The program statistics were already notorious in the 1980s, and it was suspected that the extent of underreporting would amount to a surprisingly high degree, owing to its close relationship with the program. However, this comparison suggested that this was not
the case, because the 27.9 percent underreporting extent from 1991 to 1999 was 6 percent lower than the figure of 33.8 percent from 1985 to 1989. From the information available to this research, at least in the family planning statistics, there was no convincing evidence to support the argument that underreporting of births became even more serious in the 1990s than in the 1980s.