China’s empty streets may not just be an effect of Covid
There is a wild story about China. Published by Newsweek todayChina’s official population figures are wrong, with the estimate of 1.41 billion off by about 10 percent, says researcher Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Based on birth and death data, he says the true figure is about 130 million fewer.
“Economically, local governments in China have a strong incentive to inflate population figures,” Yi said. “A larger population means larger fiscal transfers from the central government, including money for priorities such as education, pensions and poverty alleviation.”
Others point out that no other researcher has reached the same conclusions from similar data sets.
Regardless of the truth, the report highlights the continuing lack of confidence in Chinese data, and that China’s demographics are deteriorating. By 2050, the average lifespan of Chinese people will exceed 50 years.
