CHINA’S DEMOGRAPHICS

CHINA POPULATION AGING, URBANIZING

UPI, April 29, 2011

BEIJING, April 29 (UPI) -- The percentage of aging people among China's population of 1.4 billion is rising rapidly, as is the percentage of those living in urban centers, officials said.

The 2010 census indicates 13.26 percent of china's population were at least 60 years old, up 2.93 percentage points from 2000, Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics said, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Ma said the country's birthrate, however, remains low. The current total population is up only 73.9 million from 2000.

The percentage of those 14 or younger fell sharply to 16.6 percent of the total, from 22.89 percent in 2000.

China's 2010 urban population was 665.57 million, or 49.68 percent of the total, up from 36.22 percent in 2000.

Wang Feng, head of the Center for Public Policy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, told The New York Times the numbers show China "has completely turned a page in its demographic history," with very low fertility, quite low mortality and an increasingly urbanized population.

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