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Population growth curbed
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●Families shrink ●population older, better educated
CHINA'S population has grown to 1.26 billion people and is getting older, better educated and more urbanized as family size continues to shrink, according to figures announced on Wednesday from the country's latest once-every-decade nationwide census.
Zhu Zhixin, commissioner of the National Bureau of Statistics, told a press conference that China's population grew by 1.07 per cent annually in average over the past decade, 0.4 percentage points down from the end of the 1980s.
He said that China has tided over the third baby boom since the founding of New China in 1949 and is expected to limit the annual growth of population to around 10 million in the coming years.
In contrast, he said that India now has an annual growth rate of 16 million people, six million more than the population growth in China.
“This indicates that China's family planning policy has achieved effective results," Zhu said, adding that China will continue to pursue the family planning policy.
Other figures disclosed by Zhu highlighted a disturbing trend: The lopsided ratio of males to females is worsening: A 1999 survey counted 117 male births for every 100 girls — up from a ratio of 111 boys to 100 girls in 1990, while the census has found in general men outnumber women by a ratio of 106.74:100.
China's population is also becoming better educated, the census found.
Just 6.7 per cent of people aged 15 and above are illiterate, down from 15.8 per cent in 1990. The share with a university education has grown 154 per cent since 1990 to 3,611 out of every 100,000. The proportion of Chinese who attended secondary school also increased.
The census also confirmed that the proportion of older Chinese is growing. Nearly seven per cent are aged 65 or older — up 1.4 percentage points since 1990.
The average size of Chinese families has decreased by 0.52 persons over the past decade to 3.44 persons.
Zhu said China has 1,295,330,000 people, including 6.78 million in Hong Kong, 440,000 in Macao and 22.28 million in Taiwan and Fujian Province's Kinmen and Matsu islets.
Some six million census takers spread out in November to visit some 350 million households on the Chinese mainland. Their questionnaires alone required 10,000 tonnes of paper.
In another development, the State Council on Wednesday approved a draft law on population and family planning, which will be submitted to the National People's Congress Standing Committee for approval after further revisions.(SD-Xinhua)
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