China’s census takers ‘coaxed’ citizens to submit personal information with prizes, and the coronavirus pandemic helped
- Enumerators open up about collecting census data for the world’s most populous nation, and the difficulties along the way
- QR codes and a WeChat app make it easier than ever to collect and submit census data, but some older people struggle with technology, especially in rural areas
This is the second in a series of stories about China’s once-a-decade census, conducted in 2020. The world’s most populous nation will release its national demographic data on Tuesday, and the figures will have far-reaching social policy and economic implications.
Late last year, Liu Xi left her advertising job in Beijing to take care of her sick father in their hometown, a village in eastern Jiangsu province. Little did she know that she would end up being recruited to help with what is perhaps China’s largest-ever collection of public data.
In theory, the population census is the best source of statistics on China, since the polling is conducted once a decade and requires millions of boots on the ground to collect information about people’s backgrounds and whereabouts.
The top leadership will rely heavily on the resulting data for policy planning over the next decade, and this puts pressure on those at all levels of the collection process to get it right.
To that end, Beijing set a mandatory quota of self-reporting in certain areas when the 2020 census was conducted in November and December. In the past, authorities had relied solely on trained census takers – many of whom are government employees – to go door to door, collecting information.
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China begins once-in-a-decade census to gather details about its 1.4 billion population
“My understanding is that this [inclusion of self-reporting] is to ensure the accuracy of data,” Liu said. “If you ask census takers to do everything, they could be lazy and randomly input information.”
