Estimating China's Population

Abstract

The population of Mainland China is of critical importance in the study of world population, but it remains an unknown quantity. There are serious doubts about the mean ing of historical population figures and the reliability of those collected by the Chinese Communists. The basic problem is that the actual process by which the figures were produced is, in most instances, obscure. Though the 1953 census was probably closer to an actual count of the population than any previous effort, it was evidently defective, and the registration system based on it even more so. Since 1957 there have been no official population totals. If estimates are substituted for missing or unreliable data, they must allow for consider able margins of error in representing the base total and trends in fertility and mortality. Estimates and projections which take account of the particularities of China's situation, past, present, and future, and of the appropriate degree of uncer tainty regarding all aspects of China's demographic develop ment will show a wide range of totals for any given year. Yet these estimates may encourage a proper caution in drawing conclusions, greater precision in making demographic assess ments, and greater ingenuity in the pursuit of new lines of enquiry.