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.
“The monthly new birth figure was supposed to improve data transparency,” said a member of staff from the Chongqing Municipal Health Commission in response to a query sent by the South China Morning Post. “But it received unfair coverage from many foreign media.”
The member of staff also claimed the irregularity in the data from June 2019 was due to a technical error caused by a delay in entering the data into the city’s computer system because staff were working on other projects, including the government’s poverty alleviation campaign.
Chinese law prohibits the local government from simply publishing the number of new birth certificates issued by hospitals, the member of staff added.
Chongqing has instead opted to only publish half and full year figures in 2020, with data for the first six months of the year due to be published in late July.
Researchers from the United States also estimate a large and lasting decline in births due to the coronavirus pandemic, based on the Great Recession from 2007-09 and the Spanish Flu in 1918.
On top of the economic impact, there will likely be a further decline in births as a direct result of the public health crisis
Between 2007 and 2012, there were roughly 400,000 fewer births in the US, according to a report published in June by the Brookings Institute, a US think tank.
“On top of the economic impact, there will likely be a further decline in births as a direct result of the public health crisis and the uncertainty and anxiety it creates, and perhaps to some extent, social distancing,” said Melissa Kearney and Phillip Levine, the two US scholars who wrote the report published by the Brookings Institute.
“Our analysis of the Spanish Flu indicated a 15 per cent decline in annual births in a pandemic that was not accompanied by a major recession. And this occurred during a period in which no modern contraception existed to easily regulate fertility,”
Combining the economic and fertility impact from the current pandemic, the researchers predicted the decline in US births could be between 300,000 to 500,000 overall.
