Revisions

There’s an interesting article from scholar Yi Fuxian at South China Morning Post asserting that China doesn’t have the number of people claimed in the official statistics:

China’s official demographic figures, including the now-cliched “country of 1.4 billion people”, seriously misrepresent the country’s real population landscape. The real size of China’s population could be 115 million fewer than the official number, putting China behind India in terms of population.

This massive error, equal to the combined populations of the United Kingdom and Spain, is a product of China’s rigged population statistics system, influenced by the vested interests of China’s family planning authority.
To start with, the raw data of China’s population figures were “adjusted”. China’s total fertility rate, or the number of kids per woman throughout her life, dropped below the watershed level of 2.1 in 1991, from which moment the population size of the next generation would be smaller than the current one, and the average total fertility rate was 1.36 in 1994-2018, according to data from census and surveys. However, the family planning authority in charge of the country’s population control refused to believe the numbers and “adjusted” the rate to 1.6-1.8 and, accordingly, the official population size.

For instance, the real total fertility rate in 2000 was 1.22, according to a census result, but the government revised it to 1.8. Accordingly, the country had 14.1 million new births in 2000, but the government revised the figure by 26 per cent to 17.7 million. A census, which is conducted every 10 years, should provide the truest picture of China’s demographic situation. But for the 2000 census, the government was unhappy about the original finding of 1.24 billion and revised it up to 1.27 billion.

I have made my view of official revisions pretty clear, not just in China but here in the United States as well. They are always politically motivated.

I guess some people’s reaction would be who cares? Does it really matter if China has 1.285 billion people rather than 1.4 billion people or more people than India? I think it does and let me try to explain why.

The reasons it’s important have to do with the number of young people, the size of the working age population, and the dependency ratio (children and old people related to number of working age people). If China’s working age population and total population will peak in a few years with both to decline after that, it’s one thing. If China’s working age population and total population have already peaked and from here on a shrinking number of people of working age will need to support a growing number of elderly people, it has enormous implications for Chinese politics and policy. Its options will be different.

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