China’s population aging rapidly

BEIJING — China’s population is aging rapidly and half the people now live in cities, the government said Thursday.

The data from a national census carried out late last year will fuel debate about whether China should continue with its “one-child” policy, experts said.

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.

The census showed a sharp drop in the number of young people, with those under age 14 now accounting for 16.6 percent of the country’s 1.34 billion people, down 6.3 percentage points from 2000.

The number of people over age 60 rose to 13.3 percent of the total population, up nearly 3 percentage points from 10 years ago.

The rapid aging has fueled worries over how long China 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 China into the world’s second biggest economy after the United States.

The demographic shift also raises concerns that China will grow old before it becomes relatively well off on a per capita basis, with fewer people left to pay and care for fellow older citizens.

The census results, released at a news conference Thursday, showed that 49.7 percent of the population now lives in cities, up from about 36 percent 10 years ago.

The total population figure of 1.34 billion was released earlier this year. It increased by 73.9 million — equal to the population of Turkey, or California, Texas and Ohio combined — over the 10 years, a slower rate than in previous decades.

The figures reflect the one-child policy, with the average household now numbering 3.1 people, down from 3.44 a decade ago.

There has been growing speculation among Chinese media, experts and ordinary people about whether the government will soon relax that policy — introduced in 1980 as a temporary measure to curb surging population growth — and allow more people to have two children. Currently, most urban couples are limited to one child and rural families to two.

The speculation has grown despite the fact that President Hu Jintao — on the eve of the release of the census data — told a meeting of top Communist Party leaders convened to discuss population issues that China will maintain its strict family planning policy to keep the birth rate low and the economy growing.

Demographers advocating changes to the one-child policy took a counterintuitive look at Hu’s speech, suggesting his decision to publicly address family planning now meant there was fresh debate among the leadership about how best to manage it.

Wang Feng, a population expert and director of the Brookings-Tsinghua Center for Public Policy in Beijing, said the census results confirmed that China’s population has turned a corner, with low birth levels and massive migration flows.

“China has crossed over a landmark, not just demographic but also in terms of economic and social change, which is that half of its population for the first time in Chinese history is now urbanized,” Wang said.

Ma Jiantang, commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, told the news conference that all parts of the country face the problem of aging populations, but it is more pronounced in coastal and more developed areas where the population is large.

China credits its family planning limits with preventing 400 million additional births and helping break a traditional preference for large families that had perpetuated poverty. But there are serious concerns about the policy’s side effects, such as selective abortions of girls and a rapidly aging population.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Hu told top Communist leaders on Tuesday that the country would stick to its basic family planning policy and continue to maintain a low birth rate.

It said Hu briefly touched on concerns about population structure and the growing number of older people, saying that social security and services for the elderly should be improved. He also called on officials to formulate strategies to cope with more retirees.