"Missing Men" in the China Population Census

Talk abstract: The talk presents the paper which is a preliminary exploration of the consistency of samples of the China Population Census since 1982. By comparing cohort measurements of sex ratios and educational attainment across Census waves, Christina documents the growing extent of sampling bias since the 1982 Census. She finds increasing relative under-sampling of males and the less-educated since 1982, with the exception of 2010. After considering various explanations for the cohort discrepancies across Census waves, she finds that the evidence supports increased relative male under-sampling due to increasing migration. She then provides measures of cohort sex ratios and cohort educational attainment that are adjusted for this sampling bias, and estimate that males were relatively under-sampled by about 1.3 to 3% in the 2000 Census, and by about 8 to 12% for the 2005 mini-Census. She discusses preliminary implications for this systematic under-tracking, and future directions for this research agenda.

 

Speaker's bio: Christina Jenq is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at NYU Shanghai. Her research interests are in labor economics, discrimination, gender, and inequality, particularly in mainland China.

 

This event is sponsored by Center for Data Science and Analytics.