ABSTRACT
Among the three regular sources of population information in China – the Civil Affairs Bureau, the Public Security Bureau, and the census – the census typically has the most representative demographic data for a large territorial unit, such as a municipality, a province, or the entire country. However, for Shenzhen, the 2010 Census includes 10.4 million people, far less than the generally accepted and quoted population count of 14-15 million (with a large presence of highly mobile migrant workers) (Zacharias and Tang 2010; Bach 2011; Xinhua News 2011; The Guardian 2014). While the actual number of people in Shenzhen remains in dispute, the most suitable data for this research come from the Household Registration Database (HRD) held by the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau. The HRD keeps a record of hukou residents and non-hukou residents who have obtained a TRP (zanzhu zheng). Holding a local hukou or a TRP is mandatory for accessing the formal job and housing markets in the city. Migrants who have not obtained proper paperwork such as the TRP, if living in informal housing such as chengzhongcun and working in the informal sector, are usually not covered by the official databases and the census. However, local police stations at the grassroots-level track the presence of households and residents (including those unregistered ones) in each community and record the population information in the HRD. Consequently, the 2009 HRD data of 14.8 million resident records is the most comprehensive of Shenzhen’s population profile, and the database, instead of the census, is used by most government agencies for policy-making and planning.4
