> lol I don’t know where you got this impression but during the one-child policy phase it’s widely known that people would underreport their kids to avoid fines.
The news mostly. But also this guy[1], who I guess is using the leaked data. But even the official data shows a huge drop in the 0-4 bucket.
> Why would the population be overstated?
As I understand it[2], the local governments are reliant on two sources for income: land sales and money from the central government. Both are influenced by demographic change, so there's incentives to adjust the numbers upwards to keep revenue coming in.
[1]: https://zeihan.com/new-chinese-demographic-data-population-c...
[2]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-13/china-s-p...
