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Now, this I have been wondering for a long time. Chinese authorities, especially on a local level, aren't exactly known for their honesty and high moral standards. At the same time, they have a lot of incentives to over-report one particular metric: population.

So, when people are talking about 1,5 billion Chinese - have these figures have been independently confirmed, or just taken straight from the government?

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If anything, the population is underreported. The 2010 census claims it to be around 1.3 billion. But it is widely accepted as a fact that a lot of people in the countryside weren't included in the census because they are "illegal" additional children born in defiance of the one-child policy, and were simply hidden in the basement during the census, as they are hidden whenever any government check is happening.

Those children have no rights, and according to the state, don't exist. They can't go to school, get an official job, etc. They are born to do physical work on the fields and support their parents into their old age.

Genuinely curious, what are the incentives to over report population?

Doesn't it determine budget distribution from the central authorities?

Subsidies?

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