Census Takers Have Long March in China

If you think counting 100 million U.S. election ballots is tough, try counting 1.3 billion people.

That’s the monumental challenge facing China, which Friday finished conducting the nation’s fifth census of modern times.

Six million census workers--more than double the number of soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army--took 10 days to canvass the country from end to end, a massive mobilization covering about 3.7 million square miles.

They climbed mountains to find people who still live in caves. They rode horses to track down nomads in Inner Mongolia. They went door to door in China’s swollen cities, methodically working through apartments crowded with dozens of migrant laborers, asking questions.

Are you a housewife or househusband? How many days a week do you work? Do you burn gas, coal or wood for heat? Is there indoor plumbing? And--a crucial but sensitive query in “one-child” China--how many children do you really have?

The result of all this data-taking--expected after a year of number-crunching--will be a valuable snapshot of the most populous nation on Earth. The herculean project should give official confirmation of the astounding changes that have swept through this land in just the 10 years since the last nationwide tally--everything from rising disparities in income to the addition of 130 million new people, or nearly half the entire U.S. population.

The Communist regime is counting on the data to help its planners chart a course for economic development and social policy in the new millennium.

But such information wasn’t easy to come by.

This year’s census takers were confronted with the daunting task of nailing down an increasingly mobile citizenry, including China’s “floating population,” the estimated 100 million migrant workers who have fled the countryside in search of better jobs in the cities.

Hubs such as Beijing and Shanghai brim with former peasants who help build skyscrapers, hawk vegetables on the street or tidy up and baby-sit for the new elite.

At one Shanghai construction site where a gleaming new hotel is being erected, census workers were sent in with hard hats and searchlights to catch workers as they filed in. More than half the crew members were waidiren, or out-of-towners.

“The turnover here is about three months,” said Xu Xiaofeng, the crew’s foreman. “To make the count accurate, we have to get them where they work.”

Catching up with migrants such as Liu Baishu who have jobs was comparatively easy. A former tea farmer from impoverished Anhui province, Liu, 38, is thrilled to sweep floors so he can send money home to his wife and two children. He can barely read but answered all the census questions without hesitation.

More difficult for census takers was identifying those not lucky enough to land work or a place to live.

Before the formal start of the survey Nov. 1, officials scoured the streets to log China’s growing army of urban homeless. One district office in Shanghai found more than 100 people living under bridges, in abandoned buildings and in bus depots--migrants who are likely to fall through the cracks when the tabulation is complete.

“We can’t afford to leave anyone out,” census official Chai Guanlun said.

The government acknowledges that the omission rate of this census will probably exceed that of the 1990 survey, which was widely hailed as a model of accuracy for such a large-scale effort. Back then, less internal migration made an exact count much easier, said Zhang Weimin, a senior government statistician and one of the top officials supervising the census.

But for all the flight to the cities, the census is expected to show that China remains an overwhelmingly rural country, with between 700 million and 800 million farmers.

Many, if not most, are like Qiu Fengqin, 62, who was born in Deng village outside Beijing, the capital, and has lived there her entire life.

China’s economic reforms have allowed Qiu and her family to move up from subsistence farming to a more prosperous lifestyle. Although they still till the soil, Qiu and her husband also rent out rooms in their three-bedroom home for a little pocket money--an extra source of income that would have been unthinkable only 20 years ago, when market reforms were first introduced in this Communist country.

Her name, age and education level were dutifully recorded by Zhang Zunxia, the village census taker, who has worn out her feet calling on 40 households a day.

“I’m sure I won’t miss anyone or anything,” said Zhang, 53, who has lived in the village for more than 30 years. “If no one’s home in the daytime, then I go back in the evening.”

Qiu, one of her first interviewees, has one adult son who lives with her. The son, in turn, has only one child, in compliance with China’s strict family-planning policy.

Millions of others, however, have flouted the rules, risking fines and punishment for their “excess children.” In one case reported in the state media this week, a couple in Shaanxi province were discovered to have 10.

The sensitivity surrounding childbirth in China presented census takers with another challenge: getting respondents to tell the truth.

To encourage honesty, the government has promised that census information will be kept confidential and will not be turned over to police or other authorities.

“These forms are not for any other government ministry to look at,” said Zhang, the statistician. “The forms will be destroyed.”

But suspicion of government intentions is common. Aware of public distrust, the Beijing regime kicked its propaganda machine into high gear in the run-up to the census, emphasizing the importance of full participation. Teachers told schoolchildren to talk to their parents about it. Banners throughout the country declared: “Warmly cooperate in the fifth national census.”

By enlisting volunteers such as Zhang of Deng village, who know their neighborhoods well, the government hopes to increase its odds of compiling accurate information.

Shanghai’s Huangpu district reached back into its memory bank and invited 64-year-old Cheng Yukang to be a census supervisor. Cheng has the distinction of having worked on all four previous Communist-era surveys, in 1953, 1964, 1982 and 1990.

During the 1953 tally--the first of the Communist era--Cheng was just 17. Then, census workers used abacuses to tabulate answers to very simple questions.

Today, in a small example of how China has changed, statisticians in Beijing are relying on sophisticated scanning equipment and computer databases to organize the mounds of data pouring in from across the nation.

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Chu reported from Beijing and Ni from Shanghai.