| Workshop on Population
Data Analysis, Storage and Dissemination Technologies
|
| Bangkok, 27-30 March
2001 |
STAT/WDT/China
20 March 2001
ENGLISH ONLY
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE
PACIFIC
Workshop on Population Data Analysis, Storage
and Dissemination Technologies
27-30 March 2001
Bangkok |
| The introduction of China's
2000 Population Census1/
|
| National Bureau of Statistics
of China |
| Contents |
| |
1/
This paper has been reproduced as submitted.
It has been issued without formal editing.
|
| Since the first population census
in 1953, there have been four population censuses
conducted in China. The Chinese government decided
in 1980s that population census would be conducted
every ten year in the year with last digit of
0 since the fourth population census in
1990. |
| The 5th population
census of China was conducted on November 1,2000.
This cross-century census is the largest one in
China's history and has been paid great attention
by the Chinese government and aroused general
interests of the world. Since 1997, the on-going
preparatory work has been made actively and effectively
for the success of census. The field enumeration
of the population census had completed. Now the
coding and data-entry is conducting. |
| The
goal of the 5th Population Census of
China |
| The goal of the 5th
population census of China is to find out the
changes of population in number, structure, distribution,
quality and living environment, etc. since the
4th population census of China and
provide reliable basis for checking up the implementation
of the 9th Five-year Plan of Social
and Economic Development, formulating scientifically
the 10th Five-year Plan of social and
Economic Development and the Long and Medium-term
Program of Development, making overall arrangement
of people's material and cultural life and realizing
the sustainable development of population, economy,
resource and environment. |
| The
organization of the 5th Population
Census of China |
| The population census is conducted
under the leadership of the State Council and
the local people's governments at various levels. |
| Leading groups and their offices
for population census is set up by the State Council,
the people's governments of provinces, autonomous
regions and municipalities, the people's governments
of the cities with districts under their jurisdiction,
the autonomous prefectures and the administrative
division of prefectures, counties, autonomous
counties, the cities without districts under their
jurisdiction and the districts under jurisdiction
of cities. Population census offices is
set up by the townships, towns and street communities.
Population census groups is set up by villagers'
committees and residents' committees. They will
be responsible for leading the population census
and organizing its implementation. |
| The
coverage of the 5th Population Census
of China |
| The population census will cover
all persons (referring to natural persons, similarly
hereinafter) who hold the nationality of, and
permanent residing place in the People's Republic
of China. |
| In the population census, the
principle of enumeration of permanent residents
is followed. Everyone must be enumerated in his
or her permanent residing place and everyone should
be enumerated in one place only. |
| The following persons should
be enumerated in their own townships, towns and
street communities: |
- those who reside in
the townships, towns and street communities
and have their permanent household registration
there.
- those who have resided
in the townships, towns and street communities
for more than 6 months but the places of their
permanent household registration are elsewhere.
- those who have resided
in the townships, towns and street communities
for less than 6 months but have been away
from the place of their permanent household
registration for more than 6 months.
- those who live in the
townships, towns and street communities during
the population census while the places of
their household registration have not yet
settled.
- those who used to live
in the townships, towns and street communities
but are working or studying abroad during
the census and have no permanent household
registration for the time being.
|
| Those who have their permanent
household registration in the townships, towns
and street communities but have been away from
there for more than 6 months will be counted only
into the population in the places of their household
registration, but will not be counted into the
number of permanent residents there. |
| The household will be taken
as the unit of enumeration in the population census.
Households are classified into family household
and collective household. |
| A family household is the household
where the members live together in one place with
the family relationship as the main link between
them. The person who live alone is also regarded
as a family household. |
| A collective household is the
household where the members have no family relationship
between them but live together in the collective
dormitory of a unit or in other places. |
| The
Major Items of the 5th Population Census
of China |
| There are 62 items in the questionnaire
of the 5th population census. Of which,
22 items are individual items including: |
| 1. Basic items: |
| Name, relation with head of
household, sex, date of birth, nationality, etc.
These items will show the basic character of population.
After data tabulation, we will get information
on size of population, age and sex structure,
geographic distribution, size and structure of
household, size of aging population. These
items are also the basis of study on structure
of minority population, population distribution
and aging of population. |
| 2. Migration items: |
| Status of household registration,
nature of household registration, place of birth,
the time of moving in, the place of moving out,
the category of place of moving out, reason for
migration and permanent residential place five
years ago, etc. These data are of the basic data
for the study on migration history of population
(place of birth), direction of migration and number
of migration population. |
| 3. Education items: |
| capability of writing and reading,
educational level (including the adult education),
completeness of schools, etc. These data are of
the basis of study on education development and
the implementation of prospering the country through
science and education. |
| 4. Economic activity: |
| employment status, time of work,
industry, occupation, unemployment status
and source of income, etc. The economic
activities of population is the important content
of the census. By making use of these data, we
may study some basic issue such as full employment,
the structure of employment and labor resource. |
| 5. Marriage and births: |
| marriage status, month and year
of first marriage, number of children ever born,
last births from 1 November 1999 to 30 October
2000. The data of birth are very important for
the government and the demographic research. It
is absolutely necessary to obtain the data of
birth in 2000 for projecting the developing trend
of population in the early years of next century. |
| There are 23 household
items: |
| 1. Basic items: |
| household code, type of household,
number of household member, number of people
who has the household registration but has been
absent for above half year, number of people who
lives here temporarily but left the place of household
registration within half year, births, deaths,
etc. |
| 2. Housing items: |
| number of rooms, floor space,
usage of the house, if the house is shared by
two family, time of construction, floors
of the building, materials used for the wall,
kitchen, fuel for cooking, water, bathing
facilities, toilet, original ownership of the
house, cost of buying the house and monthly rent,
etc. Household is the basic unit of people's life
and the starting point of micro-economics for
a case study of economic activities of human being |
| It is an important improvement
to add the housing items in population census.
This is mainly because: firstly, it is a usual
way in the world to combine the population census
with housing census, so the term of " population
and housing census" is used in many countries;
secondly the housing condition is an important
mark of measuring the living standard of people
and related with the achievements of the goal
of China's modernization; thirdly, during the
1995 1% population sample survey, the housing
items were included in the questionnaire and proved
to be feasible. |
| There are 8 items about
deaths |
| We succeeded in understanding
the situation of deaths in the past censuses.
The items concerning the deaths, still be the
content of the 2000 census of China, mainly include
name, sex, date of birth, date of death, nationalities,
educational level and marriage status, etc. From
these figures, we can estimate the average life
expectancy, mortality rate of children, size and
structure of the deaths, etc. It is very important
for us to understand the health quality of population. |
| There are 5 items about
the population of temporary residency |
| The items about the population
of temporary residency are new content and enumerated
in an attached questionnaire. To get a clear understanding
on the population of temporary residency will
be not only beneficial to the government in planning
and administration of floating population, but
also to a clear understanding of the total population. |
| The
Major Characteristics of the 5th Population
Census of China |
| 1. Combining the sample
survey with the population census by using a long
questionnaire and a short questionnaire |
| As it is known that China is
a developing country with limited financial resources.
People hope to get more information from this
significant population census. Therefore, we will
combine the sample survey with the population
census by using a long questionnaire and a short
questionnaire during the census. All citizens
will be enumerated with the short questionnaire
with less items, and some of citizens will be
selected and enumerated with the long questionnaire.
By this way, we can not only get more information,
but also reduce the input of the census. Many
countries in the world use short and long questionnaires
during their census and have accumulated lots
of experiences in applying such technique. It
is the first time to use such technique in China. |
| Following three issues have
been settled during the sample design for the
purpose of ensuring the representativeness of
the sample data and cutting down expenses: |
- The determination of the
final sample unit. Is the sample unit a census
unit, household or individual? If we take
census unit as the sample unit, as the size
of cluster is so big that the representativeness
of the data will be weakened. If we
take individual as the sample unit, we may
lose the information about the household structure.
So the sample unit for the long questionnaire
of the 2000 population census should be household
and the sample proportion will be 10%. In
this way, the representativeness of the data
will be ensured for the counties with population
over 400 thousand.
- The enumerators are requested
to act in strict accordance with the rules
and instructions of sampling. They cannot
change the sample household at will. In the
meantime, the measures of quality control
and check will be made strictly. Interference
of personnel should be avoided.
- The collective household
cannot be selected as sample, the sample unit
should be individual household.
|
| 2. The Application of Optical
Character Reading Technique (OCR) |
| The method of keyboard typing
was used for data-entry during the past population
census of China. Following the technical development,
OCR technique has been applied in most of countries
of the world. The OCR Technique will also be used
during the 5th population census of
China. |
| The advantage of the application
of OCR is of manpower saving, less man-made errors,
accuracy of data, quick data entry. The application
of OCR requests high quality of paper and the
technique of printing and strict filling-in of
the questionnaire. |
| The OCR technique has been applied
in some regions during the 1990 population census,
1995 1% sample survey of population and 1997 sample
survey on the change of population. Some experiences
have been gained. The OCR technique was formally
applied during the 1997 agriculture census of
China. The conditions are ripe for the application
of OCR technique during the 2000 population census
of China. The OCR technique will be tested in
the pilot census in order to ensure the success
of census. |
| 3. The limited application
of geographic information system (GIS) |
| GIS is a totally new technique
for China's census. We are short of experience
to apply it in the whole country. On the other
hand, it is not very suitable to apply GIS in
rural areas. During the 2000 census, we will set
up GIS in large and medium cities to achieve some
experiences of construction and application of
such system and lay a good basis for setting up
GIS all over China. |
| 4. The full application
of computer and network transmission techniques. |
| The tremendous works of data-processing
of population census link and restrain with each
other. Improvement has to be made in the systematic
management and techniques of data-processing of
the 5th population census. |
| The data-processing of the 5th
population census of China will make full use
of the achievement of the statistical information
project. And the work of data-entry, data-editing
and tabulation will be carried out through the
internal computer network set up by the National
Bureau of Statistics of China. A remote checking
management of software operation, quality control
and progress monitoring will be adopted by the
national and provincial offices of population
census through the national computer network of
the statistical information project. The work
of data-entry and tabulation will be completed
within one year. The publication of census results
will be made in two steps: some major indicators
will be published between February and March of
2001; At the end of 2001 or beginning of 2002,
all of census data will be published. |
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