China: Evaluation of the Completeness of Birth Registration in China Using Analytical Methods and Multiple Sources of Data

Births are registered and birth data are collected in China by different government departments, and the completeness and quality of birth data are heavily affected by the one-child policy irrespective of the involving departments. In this paper, data from population census, primary school enrollment and household registration system are used to assess the completeness of birth registration in China by employing three types of methods—linear regression, Brass /PF ratio method, and Preston integrated approach. The three types of estimation derived from multiple data are highly consistent. Preston integrated approach is attractive and promising in application to the case of China where census age data are rather accurate over age 10 while there is varying degree of under-reporting at the very young ages. This paper was presented in United Nations Expert Group Meeting on "Methodology and lessons learned to evaluate the completeness and quality of vital statistics data from civil registration" New York, 3-4 November 2016.