ABSTRACT
Evidence abounds that the world population, particularly in the developed world, is ageing, a process which appears to be slow enough to encourage excuses for delaying prompt actions in some societal areas, but which is now fast enough to render costly consequences if planning is not undertaken with understanding and foresight. Like elsewhere, where birth rates have significantly slowed down coupled with a decline in death rates, the mainland Chinese population has been ageing with a proportion of the mature population growing ever steadily. The Fifth National Census of China documents that citizens of China over the age of 60 years (which is the generally accepted criterion for designating an ageing population) totalled 132 million or approximately 10 per cent of the population and people aged over 65 years totalled 88 million or 7 per cent of the total population ( www.China.org, 2005). Urban cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, have shown even stronger trends in the numbers of ageing people. For example, in Beijing, those over the age of 60 totalled 1.7 million in 2000 accounting for 12.54 per cent of the city’s population (www.China.org, 2005) while in Shanghai this figure reached 2.4 million accounting for 18.3 per cent of the population (Zhang and Zhang, 2001). By 2007, there will be 200 million Chinese aged 65 or older, making up 14 per cent of the total population (China Daily, 2004).
