Yixing Yang

Abstract: There has been much debate on the issue of aging population in relation to urbanization. The debate in Chinese context has been drawing particular attention. Analysis and comparison of data drawing from China’s Six National Census and World Population Prospect has shown that aging problem of China has four unique features including early occurrence, higher rate of aging population, differences between urban and rural areas and correspondence to small family size. A further analysis of these four features has indicated that China’s aging has much higher negative impact on the global economic growth than any other country in the world. During 2010-2100, several indicators measuring population aging rise rapidly and stay on the high level for a long time. If the paper switches China’s population structure in 1960-2005 with data in 2005-2050, GDP per capita would seem probably decrease by 1.23 percent. Therefore it needs to be paid attention to and solved. This paper aims to help people better understand this issue and raise the public awareness of its severity.