The birth records in the hukou statistics were more problematic than the records of total population. The annual registered births in the 1980s were not available, but the results of the 1990 cleanup program well reflected the seriousness of the problem. It was reported that up to 22.19 million newborns and young children, the once out-of- plan births, were not registered before the census-taking in July 1990 (Shen 1994). The results of the 2000 cleanup program are not available, but it is possible to use the SSB annual estimates to examine the birth records in the hukou statistics in the 1990s (Table 3.2). It appeared that births recorded in the hukou system were on average 6 million fewer than in the SSB annual series from 1991 to 1999. The difference between the two sources in 2000 narrowed to 1.5 million, but this greatly benefited the pre-census cleanup program. From any perspective, the birth records in the hukou statistics were nearly useless.
Table 3.2 Comparison of births between the SSB official estimates and those recorded in the
hukou statistics in China, 1991-2000
SSB official estimates (millions)
Hukou recorded births (millions) Annual difference (millions) Year (1) (2) (3)=(1)-(2) 1991 22.58 16.81 5.77 1992 21.19 15.10 6.09 1993 21.26 14.52 6.74 1994 21.04 14.28 6.76 1995 20.63 14.40 6.23 1996 20.67 14.30 6.37 1997 20.38 13.86 6.52 1998 19.42 13.43 5.99 1999 18.34 13.67 4.67 2000 17.71 16.21 1.50 Total 203.22 146.58 56.64
Sources: The SSB series are from the SSB (2002a); the hukou series are from the MPS (1991-2000).
There are many complicated factors resulting in underreporting of births in the hukou system. First, the non-registration of out-of-plan births certainly was the main cause. Some parents may have chosen to delay the registration because of fear of punishment, but others could not do so according to local policy. Many local governments required that newborns must be registered with birth permits from the relevant family planning institution; but the out-of-plan births certainly had not these permits. Some local governments permitted the registration of out-of-plan births only after their parents had fully paid the fines, and it may take time for many parents to do so. Second, infant deaths, particularly those which occurred within one month of births, were most likely to disappear in the statistics, because the system permits parents to register newborns within one month of birth. Third, during the 1990s, since the hukou system was no longer important as it had previously been, many people were reluctant to register or report any changes in a timely fashion if it was not necessary, even if they had no problems in doing so. For example, in the 2000 pre-census clean-up program, in Shangdong province, 675, 000 people were reported with pending registration. Among them, 220, 000 were in-plan births, making up 32.6 percent and another 55, 000 were out-of-plan births, constituting only 8.1 percent of the detected unregistered population (Zhang and Chen 2002: 76-77).
Table 3.3 Comparison of the increase of total population and the registered natural increase in the hukou statistics in China, 1991-2000
Year-end population
(millions)
Annual increase of total population from the preceding year (millions)
Natural increase registered in hukou statistics (millions)
Difference between annual population increase and natural
increase (millions) Year (1) (2) (3) (4)=(2)-(3) 1990 1, 132.74 - - - 1991 1, 145.11 12.37 10.48 1.89 1992 1, 155.63 10.52 8.44 2.08 1993 1, 165.97 10.34 7.95 2.39 1994 1, 176.74 10.77 7.71 3.06 1995 1, 187.88 11.14 7.73 3.41 1996 1, 198.66 10.78 7.55 3.23 1997 1, 209.03 10.37 7.28 3.09 1998 1, 218.18 9.15 6.65 2.50 1999 1, 228.12 9.94 7.20 2.74 2000 1, 239.92 11.80 8.61 3.19 Total - - 79.60 27.58
Source: The hukou year-end total population and the natural increase series are from the MPS (1991- 2000).
However, it would be mistaken to believe that no out-of-plan births were included in the hukou registers. The concept of in-plan or out-of-plan refers not only to the number of children, but also to the timing of childbirth. As mentioned in Chapter 2, if a couple who were entitled to have a second child after four-year spacing, actually had the child within a shorter time, that birth would also be considered out-of-plan. After paying the fines, they were able to register their birth. As the hukou is still necessary in some life-cycle arrangements, such as education, being enlisted in the army and the allocation of blocks of land for future building construction, a large number of couples have managed to register their out-of-plan births in other ways, such as reporting them as in-migrants or adopted children (Johansson, Zhao and Nygren 1991; Zeng et al. 1993). In fact, births only refer to newborns in the current statistical year in the hukou statistics, and many previously underreported babies could appear as newfound children in the current statistics. This phenomenon was quite similar to that occurred in the family planning statistics, which shall be explored in Section 3.6. As shown in Table 3.3, the annual increase of total
population exceeded the registered natural increase in the hukou statistics from 1991 to 2000. This offers clear evidence that many out-of-plan births were actually included into the hukou statistics.
According to a circular jointly issued by the MPS and SFPC in October 1988, millions of out-of-plan births had been registered in the hukou system as in-migrants (MPS & SFPC 1988). Zeng et al. (1993) reported that the comparison of national figures for in-migrants and out-migrants resulted in a difference of 10.89 million from 1982 to 1987, on average 2.14 million each year. They concluded: ‘Our field observations, however, lead us to believe that misreporting of a birth as an in-migrant increased substantially in the late 1980s’ (Zeng et al. 1993: 290). The analysis in this section shows that this pattern continued in the 1990s with a difference of 19.13 million between in-migrants and out-migrants from 1992 to 2000 (Table 3.4).
Table 3.4 Annual difference between registered in-migrants and out-migrants in the hukou
statistics in China, 1992-2000
Hukou recorded in-migrants (millions)
Hukou recorded out- migrants (millions) Annual difference (millions) Year (1) (2) (3)=(1)-(2) 1992 18.70 17.14 1.56 1993 18.19 16.53 1.66 1994 19.49 17.08 2.41 1995 18.46 15.92 2.54 1996 17.51 15.25 2.26 1997 17.85 15.53 2.32 1998 17.13 15.10 2.03 1999 16.87 15.00 1.87 2000 19.08 16.60 2.48 Total 163.28 144.15 19.13
Source: The hukou recorded in-migrants and out-migrants are from the MPS (1991-2000). Note: The migration figures of 1991 are not available.
It appears that the annual increase of total population other than natural increase (column 4 in Table 3.3) exceeds the difference between in-migrants and out-migrants (column 3 in Table 3.4). During the period from 1992 to 2000, the difference amounted to 6.56 million, on average 0.73 million each year. It is speculated that
some of these may be ‘newfound’ children, who were unreported in previous years, and some may be births or young children being misreported as adopted children. There are no official figures about adoption, but some studies estimate that adopted children amounted to between 0.4 and 0.5 million from 1985 to 1987 (Johansson 1995; Johansson, Zhao and Nygren 1991). These findings are very interesting and important, because they suggest that since the 1980s a huge number of out-of-plan births have not been excluded from the hukou system, but appear within the system misreported as in-migrants or adopted children.