[Ederico]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

China will reach 1,300 million people this week
Tuesday, 4 January, 2005

According to the calculations of the National Office of Statistics, which were made public by the agency New China, continental China's population will reach the figure of 1,300 million within this week.

Due to the policy for the reduction of demography enforced by the Chinese Government, the rate of births dropped from 21.06 per thousand in 1990 to 12.41 per thousand in 2003. At the same time, the anual demographic growth decreased from 14.39 per thousand down to 6.01 per thousand.

The vast majority of the urban population, near 40% of the total population, have nowadays only one child or none. In most regions land workers are allowed to have a second child if their first born is a girl.

"China has made persitent efforts for 30 years in order to reduce its demographic growth", said an officer of the National Commission for Family Planning. "But China is about to enter new and difficult challenges", he added.

With the highest life expectancy in the planet, the aging of its population is very fast, and the exceeding birth of boys compared to that of girls poses a big problem due to the practice of selective abortions, which is forbidden but much extended.

Since the majority of the rural population doesn't have access to plans of retirement, land workers need to have male descendency to ensure themselves their subsistence because, according to their costums, when they get married women go to live with their in-laws.

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