Age-heaping: contrasting patterns from China

"The purpose of this article is to draw attention to the remarkable variation in the accuracy of age reporting in China's 1982 census data, between the nation as a whole and one of its constituent provinces, namely the Uygur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang." The authors find that "the standard of age reporting among the Han Chinese, and among many of the ethnic minorities, is very good....However,...in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, age heaping and age exaggeration are as bad as they are in many other developing countries. The authors show that the poor quality of age reporting in Xinjiang is confined to three of the region's ethnic communities, the Uygur, Kirgiz and Tajik...."