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Population Aging in China

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International Handbook of Population Aging

Part of the book series: International Handbooks of Population ((IHOP,volume 1))

The proximate determinants of population aging in China are fundamentally the same as those in any other country. It is an inevitable consequence of the process known as the “demographic transition” in which declining fertility together with a rise in life expectancy leads to a shift towards an older age structure of the population. Yet, the story of population aging in China is unmistakably unique, shaped by its distinct historical, cultural, economic and political contexts. The pace of its aging trend is by itself unparalleled, with the proportion of older adults projected to grow from 6.8 per cent to 23.6 per cent over the first half of the twenty-first century (United Nations 2005). As the most populous country in the world, this increase in the population of elderly translates to an astounding growth of 242 million people, which would qualify it for the fourth largest population in the world today.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Feinian Chen

  2. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Guangya Liu

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  1. Feinian Chen
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  2. Guangya Liu
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina Hamilton Hall, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210, CB 3210, USA

    Peter Uhlenberg

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Chen, F., Liu, G. (2009). Population Aging in China. In: Uhlenberg, P. (eds) International Handbook of Population Aging. International Handbooks of Population, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8356-3_8

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