Your Quiz — Population XXXX?? and Counting
March 8th, 2007
A Starbucks gift certificate that will buy a “grande” something to the first Cal Poly MBA China trip student who answers the below question correctly, AND, who also discusses whether he/she thinks the Chinese government under-reports or over-reports this number (and why).
Question: According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China’s population grew by almost ______ million last year, to a total of ______________.
Entry Filed under: Pre-Departure, Beijing, China, Misc.
5 Comments Add your own
1. Brian McCarthy | March 8th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
“China’s National Bureau of Statistics said in a report released late Wednesday that the country’s population was 1,314,480,000 at the end of 2006, an increase of 6.92 million people.”
quoted from http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-03/01/content_817231.htm
I think the numbers may be over-reported to gain support for the governemt imposed population control policy.
2. Eric Cole | March 8th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, China’s population grew by almost 6.92 million last year, to a total of 1,314.48 million. I feel that this statistic is under-reported. The estimated population growth for the U.S. in 2006 was 3 million people to a total of a little over 300 million, a significantly smaller rate in relation to total population size. I feel that China might not accurately report this figure because they do not really know how much the growth is and because they do not want the condemnation of the rest of the world for their inability to harness the growth.
3. Steven Rodger | March 8th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
China’s population grew by almost 7 million in 2006 to an estimated total of 1.314 Billion at the end 2006. (Same number as above). Here is an estimate of the Current Population
I believe the Chinese government under-reports this number, because it does not take into account many births to the countries rural population, which represents a majority of China’s citizens. In a study conducted in 1988, it showed that 16.75 percent of babies born in that period were not registered.
Additionally the Chinese, ‘one-child policy’ causes under registration and abortion especially amongst females, due to the tradition of preferring male offspring. An interesting note that in the United States, females outnumber males by about 4.5 million, with a ratio of 0.97 male/female. With a similar Male to Female ratio, China should have about 20 million more females than male citizens. Instead the with a ratio of ratio of 1.06 male/female there are approximately 40 million more male than female citizens. With this crude estimate, this points out that over 60 million females could be missing from the Chinese Population. (Based on statistics from United States CIA)
4. Chris Carr | March 11th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
The prize goes to Brian and Eric!
They both got the number right, but split on the “why does China do this” question.
Re: this latter question, I don’t know what the answer is, quite frankly. I have heard experts claim both positions. My own bias is that they under-report simply because of the leakage that I would assume occurs when trying to capture a count on 1.3 billion plus people, 800 to 900 million of which live in rural areas (and some of which are hard to get to).
Thus, you both win this time.
Sorry Steve, Eric beat you to the punch for the second slot by about an hour!
Brian and Eric, stop by for your gift certificate!
5. Steve Rodger | March 12th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
No worries…I don’t drink Starbucks anyways.
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