The study of demography is valuable for making policy in population management, household registration and social security policy in China, home to about 1.4 billion people according to the latest statistics. With the widespread use of the internet, big data has begun to enter the field of population science. 

Wang Guangzhou, a research fellow at the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that issues of population total, structure and growth have always had a fundamental influence on China’s population development.

The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposes to strengthen the study of population development strategy. In the face of a new era with new developments in population, there is broad space for demographic research. However, for demographic researchers, the difficulty in acquiring basic historical data is a barrier that still lies ahead. 

Li Ding, an associate professor at the School of Sociology and Population Studies at Renmin University of China, said that the study of demography is currently more dependent on data, such as large-scale sample survey data, census data and government administrative data. It can be said that those who get the data will seize the research opportunity.

Wang added that the population problem has always been a fundamental and strategic issue with overall importance for China’s social and economic development. At present, some conclusions of demographic research cannot withstand scientific tests or scrutiny. Many low-level repeated studies and so-called “research results” to attract public attention are not uncommon. The root cause is insufficient scientific research and scientific training. Precise and in-depth research usually takes time, but the abuse of data and methods and irresponsible research reflect a lack of respect for science. 

Qiao Xiaochun, a professor at the Institute of Population Research at Peking University, said that in addition to the issue of data quality, lack of research tools and insufficient interdisciplinary research are also troubling current demographic research.

As for whether the rise of big data will provide new perspectives for demographic research, scholars reminded that demographic research should be cautious. 

Qiao said that big data is widely used in the commercial field, but it has limitations in the field of scientific research. In other words, big data is biased data and cannot scientifically reflect objective reality generally. The biggest trap of big data is data reliability and data validity. The role of big data in population research remains to be seen.

Big data can respond to social concerns timely and work as a supplement to remedy shortcomings in the census. Wang said that it’s worth noting that big data does not answer all issues of population, because a lot of data is not collected according to specific research objectives. It is necessary to test this data with existing methods of demographic research. Big data should be a supplement to traditional demographic research. Abuse and monopoly of population big data resources may bring other challenges to traditional demographic research. 

When looking at how to make demographic research results better serve decision making processes, it is necessary to focus on the opening of mask data. Open data must be anonymous and should be protected by legislation. In fact, the opening of census data refers more to micro data, rather than macro data, Qiao said.

Li said that basic data service is one of the most important public services in the era of big data. The younger demographers should be prepared to do research with existing open data, rather than relying on some general forms of monopoly data. 

Wang said that the advantage of demographic big data is that it reflects some aspects of the population status and process in real time. When conducting in-depth research on population big data, it is also necessary to test research results with other data. With the help of increasingly rich and effective population big data resources, demographic studies will inevitably become more and more useful.

(Edited by YANG LANLAN)