Dragon Baby Boom?

Local media have been discussing the Chinese year of the dragon which starts on January 23rd and comes around every twelve years:

“Many Chinese consider the Year of the Dragon to be the most auspicious year to have a child. Those born under the sign of the dragon – the fifth, and the mightiest of the 12 Chinese zodiac signs – are said to be outstanding, driven, independent and destined for success.

[Feng shui practitioner] Mrs Chan said there would definitely be a spike in the number of Chinese mothers in New Zealand giving birth, but did not believe the numbers were large enough to affect hospitals or the health system.”

Out of curiosity, I had a look at the birth rate statistics (births per 1,000 population) for China:

The two dots indicate the year of the Dragon – no a year of the dragon spike at all.

I couldn’t get detailed enough statistics on birth rates for women of Asian descent in New Zealand – they were grouped together over a period of years.

However, researchers have found a (small) year of the Dragon effect on birth rates in other Asian countries – their paper on the subject and its history is fascinating.

Here’s an example in Hong Kong:

They conclude:

“birth rate rise in the Dragon Year is due to changes in timing of births that will have little effect on cumulative fertility.”

I would have liked to have seen some numbers about the “spikes” mentioned in the news stories to give context to how big this effect is (or isn’t).