China's population rises to 1.339 billion

Apr 28, 2011, 10:19 GMT

Beijing - China's population has reached 1.3397 billion, a rise of 73.9 million over the last decade, the National Bureau of Statistics said Thursday, but warned of dangers of an ageing population and a skewed gender ratio.

Average annual growth between 2000 and 2010 was 0.57 per cent, according to the most recent census carried out late last year. The growth rate slowed from 1.07 per cent in the 1990 to 2000 period, the bureau said.

'The rate indicated the momentum of fast growth in our population has been controlled effectively thanks to the family planning policy,' Ma Jiantang, the bureau's director, was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency.

He said the decline eased pressure on resources and the environment and was a good base for further economic growth.

However, close attention must be paid to changes in the population structure Ma said, describing a greying of the population, a high proportion of internal migrants and an increasing boy-to-girl sex ratio among newborns as the major issues.

In a society that puts higher value on boys than girls and has strict one-child family planning rules, 118 boys were born for every 100 girls according to the census figures. The ratio for all ages of the population is 51.27 per cent males to 48.73 per cent females.

'The gender ratio of 118 was still beyond the normal range and we must attach great attention to this problem and take more effective measures to promote sex equality in terms of employment and salary, while caring more for girls,' Ma said.

Urban dwellers now number 665.57 million or 49.68 per cent of the world's most populous country, a rise of 13.46 percentage points.

The proportion of Chinese aged 60 and older increased to 13.26 per cent, up 2.39 percentage points, while those under 14 made up 16.6 per cent of the population, down 6.29 percentage points.

The relative number of Han Chinese, the majority ethnic group, fell by 0.08 per cent to 91.51 per cent of the population. Illiteracy declined from 6.72 per cent in 2000 to 4.08 per cent in 2010, the data showed.

Six million people carried out the census over a period of four days in November, visiting 400 million households.

The census takes place every 10 years.

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