After achieving stable and low birth rate, China must shift from
controlling numbers to optimizing structure in its population and
family planning work, said Gu Shengzu, deputy governor of Hubei
Province and an expert on population economics.
Gu made the remark at a seminar on World Population Day, July
11. Gu said that China now faces six major problems in its
population structure.
· Serious gender imbalance in newborns. The country's fifth
population census, conducted in 2000, showed that the average
male-female ratio was 119:92, reaching as high as 130 in provinces
such as Jiangxi,
Guangdong
and Henan.
· High numbers of birth defects. Some 800,000 to 1.2 million
babies are born with defects each year.
· Aging population. Developed countries like Britain use 80
years to transform from an adult society to an aged society, with
per capita GDP increasing from US$5,000 to US$10,000 during the
period. China completed the transformation in 20 years with per
capita GDP only 1,000 dollars. Some cities, including Dalian and
Shanghai, got gray before they got rich.
· Social problems caused by migrating population. This
includes children left behind in rural areas by parents who seek
work in cities.
· Children of migrant population. Education is the biggest
problem, and they are facing the danger of being marginalized.
Schools specially constructed for these children are not of the
same quality as government-run schools. Migrant parents cannot
afford the fees charged by the latter, even with the doors opened
to them.
· Impact of infectious diseases. AIDS in China has already
jumped from high-risk groups to the wider population and has
entered a period of rapid spreading.
The world population reached 5 billion on July 11, 1987. To draw
the attention of world governments and the public to the population
question, the United States decided in 1990 to set July 11 as World
Population Day.
The world's population has now reached 6.4 billion, with 1.3
billion in China as of the end of 2003.
(People's Daily July 14, 2004)