China begins world's biggest census drive to count its population

China on Sunday started world’s biggest exercise of population count, conducted once in a decade, to document demographic changes in most populous country.

About seven million census takers began door-to-door survey for seventh census in country to account for China’s population stated to be 1.37 billion in last census exercise ten years ago.

Carrying out census is critical to understand population size, structure and distribution, Ning Jizhe, deputy head of National Development and Reform Commission, said during a video conference to promote national census.

census collects data, including name, ID number, , marital status, education, and profession of Chinese citizens, state-run Xinhua news ncy reported.

China has been conducting a national population census every 10 years since 1990s. exercise was expected to provide size of its ing population.

In March last year, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang told media that China’s population d above 60 years increased to 420 million and that of children over six years to 100 million putting heavy pressure on nursing services and day care centres.

After implementing decades-old one child policy, China is facing a demographic crisis with a rapidly ing population. China has permitted people to have second child since 2016.

China currently has 250 million people above 60 years and 170 million above 65 years, Li said during his annual press conference last March.