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Gu and Feng

Figure 7. Period age ratios in Chinese censuses

Figure 8. Cohort age ratios at each age between the adjacent censuses of China

5. Concluding Remarks

This paper applied APAR (birth-size adjusted and unadjusted) and ACAR to the six population censuses in China
since 1950 to analyzed age heaping in China. We found that the Chinese population generally had a low preference
for ending digits of age; however, there existed preferences for specific ages in certain censuses. These preferences
had two main patterns: First, in middle and old ages, the Chinese population had a preference on the ending digit of 0,
yet this preference diminished after 1990. This trend may be due to the institutional implementation and improvement
of the household registration system and personal the identity card system as well as the increasing demands for
accurate age reporting in school application, job hunting, housing purchase, and medical insurance. The current youth
almost cannot over-report their ages, as census enumerators could examine their household registration system and
identity cards. However, when census numerators visited a household, they typically asked a person in the household
(mostly the household head) to fill the census forms without crosschecking with other available data. Consequently,
underreports/undercounts or overreports/overcounts of individuals, out-migrants, and deaths in the household are
common in many censuses, despite the well-developed household registration system (Guo and Che, 2008; Li and
Ma, 1984; Qiao, 1993; Qiao and Yang, 1993; Wu and Gan, 2013; Yang, 1987; Zha and Qiao, 1993; Zhai, 1987). When
people begin to acknowledge the necessity of reporting accurate birth date and age, the cultural tradition preferring
or avoiding reporting certain ages will gradually fade away. With the improvement of the vital registration and

International Journal of Population Studies | 2019, Volume 5, Issue 1 21