China’s Chongqing halts release of monthly birth data due to ‘unfair’ foreign media coverage
- Chongqing, an economic powerhouse in southwestern China which is home to some 30 million residents, suspended the release of monthly birth data earlier this year
- Chongqing’s data had come under heavy criticism after a sudden spike in new births in June last year, with China seeking to halt an overall slowdown in birth rates
“Unfair” foreign media coverage has been blamed for one of the only local governments in China that released monthly data on new births halting the practice.
The Chinese provincial level municipality of Chongqing, an economic powerhouse in southwestern China which is home to some 30 million residents, suspended the release of the data earlier this year.
Official national birth figures are only published annually at the beginning of each year, meaning Chongqing was one of only a handful of local governments to provide an early indicator of population change and the effect of government policies.
But Chongqing’s data had come under heavy criticism after a sudden spike in new births in June last year, when the municipality reported that 66,862 children had been born.
The monthly new birth figure was supposed to improve data transparency
This figure was close to the total number of births from the previous five months combined, leading population experts to suspect that local officials were manipulating the data to satisfy an official target.