Estimates of the Poor Elderly Population in China

Xiaochun Qiao, Renmin University of China
Kaiti Zhang, China Research Center on Aging
Lujun Sun, China Research Center on Aging

There were 130 million elderly population aged 60 and over in China at the end of year 2000. Poverty is the most serious problems among aging issues in China. However, we have never known how many of them were poor even though Chinese economic situation has improved greatly since 1980s. The objective of this research is to estimate the proportion and the number of poor elderly population in mainland China. The data used for estimation is from the National Urban-Rural Sampling Survey of the Elderly conducted by China Research Center of Aging in November, 2000 and the 2000 national census on November 1st, 2000. The result is that the proportion of the poor elderly was 17.5 percent and the number of the poor elderly was 22.75 million at the reference time of the census. In addition, the demographic and social characteristics of the poor elderly were also analyzed.