How many people actually live in China?  The usual answer is that the country is home to about one-sixth of the population of the world.  The census carried out recently, the first in ten years, may provide a more exact answer to the question.

Officially the population of the mainland is 1.25 billion people.  But some experts estimate that as many as 200 million people may not figure in the population statistics.  The main reason for this unknown segment of the population is related to the one-child policy that the government has enforced on couples for several years.  Failure to comply with this could bring a heavy fine or even confiscation of property.  A recent South China Morning Post article reports on one small farmer who was fined the equivalent of four months wages for breaching the regulations.

Out of the list

Because of the penalties involved many couples do not register children other than the first.  And because many of these children do not officially exist they are excluded from any social benefits.  Bigger families are more common in the remote western areas of the country where children are needed to maintain small farms.

Largest census

The census was the largest ever undertaken anywhere in the world.  More than five million census-takers knocked on doors all over the country.  A pilot survey done in June met with mixed success.  Some people refused to talk to the census-takers in spite of the government campaign assuring people that there would be no punishment or prosecutions for revelations about other children.

Off to city life

No one knows for certain how big the migrant labour force is in China.  Since the government’s decision to disband the communes in 1979 roughly 100 million farmers have abandoned the countryside and migrated to the cities in search of work.  The household registration system designed to prevent rural people from migrating to the cities has been modified over the years.  The decrease in population, which the one-child policy was expected to bring about, is noticeable in the better-off cities like Beijing and Shanghai where the death rate is now greater than the birth rate.

China’s long standing position as the world’s populations leader may change over the next 50 years.  According to the United Nations Population Fund, India with its current population growth could become the world’s most populous nation by 2045.

Salamat sa Far East