More than 30% of China will be over 60 by 2035: study

Beijing, Sep 20 (EFE).- Toward the year 2035, there will be more than 400 million people over 60, which will represent more than 30 percent of the Chinese population, representatives of the country’s health authorities said Tuesday, according to local media.

At that time, Chinese society will be in a stage of “severe aging,” said Wang Haidong, director of the National Health Commission’s Department of Aging, at a press conference.

It is estimated that, by the end of 2025, when China’s 14th five-year plan concludes, there will be more than 300 million people over 60 in the country, 20 percent of the total population, The Paper newspaper reported.

Wang pointed to the geographic disparities of the aging population, which is “more numerous in urban areas” but “accounts for a larger proportion” in rural areas.

In 2021, there were already 10 jurisdictions at the provincial level in which those over 60 are at least 20 percent of the residents and mainly located in the northeast and center of the country.

China’s aging population presents numerous “challenges for the provision of public services and the sustainability of social security,” Wang said.

Experts said “the degree of dependency of the elderly will reach its maximum level toward the year 2050.”

Authorities in July said China, the most populous country in the world, would enter “negative growth” before 2025.

Last year was the year with the lowest number of births in many Chinese provinces.

According to the latest national census, carried out every 10 years and presented in May 2021, China has some 1.41 billion inhabitants, although aging and low birth rates worry authorities, who last year allowed families to have a third child.

Experts have predicted that neighboring India, with a population of some 1.38 billion, will overtake China in the near future to become the world’s most populous country. EFE

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