(CBC News) China’s population is aging rapidly, the government said Thursday, though its leaders are refusing to relax strict family planning controls that are part of the cause.
The results of a national census conducted late last year show the proportion of elderly people in the country of 1.34 billion jumped, while that of young people plunged sharply. The census results, announced Thursday, also show that half the population now lives in cities.
A nurse takes care of newborn babies at a hospital in Hefei, Anhui province on April 21. China’s mainland population grew to 1.339 billion by 2010, according to census figures released on Thursday, up 5.9 per cent from the last census in 2000. Reuters
The census adds data to the world-changing shifts under way in China in the past decade, as economic reforms raise living standards and pull more people off farms into the cities while families get smaller and the population ages.
China’s rapid aging has fueled worries over how long the country will be able to sustain its high economic growth, as fewer young people are available to work in factories and build the roads that transformed it into the world’s second biggest economy after the United States.
The census results show that people aged 60 and above comprise 13.3 percent of the population, up nearly 3 percentage points from 2000. Young people aged 14 and below accounted for 16.6 percent, down 6.3 percentage points from a decade ago.
Ma Jiantang, commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, told reporters that while the population is aging nationwide, the trend is more pronounced in coastal and more developed areas where the population is large and land is relatively scarce.
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