China

Although fertility in rural China is much higher than in urban areas, aging problems will be more serious in rural areas because of the continuing massive rural-to-urban migration, the large majority of which is young people. Under the medium fertility and medium mortality assumptions, the proportion of elderly will be 26 percent in rural areas and 22 percent in urban areas by the middle of the twenty-first century. The proportions will be 31 percent in rural areas and 26 percent in urban areas under medium fertility but low mortality assumptions (Zeng and Vaupel, 1989). It is also important to note that the extremely rapid and large-scale population aging in China is accompanied by a per capita GNP that is considerably lower (especially in rural areas) than that in many other developing countries. Thus, resources for addressing the serious problems caused by rapid population aging are limited.