China's middle class is projected to reach 40% of the population in 2020, twice the proportion at the turn of the century, according to the International City Development Report released jointly by the Social Sciences Academic Press and Shanghai Academy of Social Science more ›

BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries have contributed to almost half of global growth in the past decade, but their high times may be over as they face an aging labor market. The major effects in demographics are already beginning to be seen in China, where its one child policy is holding itself back from growing a strong young labor force, thus raising doubts on how to fund its growing pension bill. more ›

Experts state that China is now home to at least one million infertile men. Unfortunately that's not all: findings also show that 50% of Chinese men over 40 suffer from erectile dysfunction. Such statistics make it seem almost inconceivable that China saw over 18 million births in 2009 or the equivalent more than 15% of the U.S. population. more ›

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We already know how many people live in Shanghai and how many foreigners live in China, but we've never had a very clear picture of how many foreigners live in Shanghai. Global Times breaks it down for us, with numbers from last year's Shanghai census, the first ever to count foreigners. Here are some of the more interesting figures: more ›

Another week, another handy Economist infographic! This time they take on the Chinese one-child policy and its effect on population size if it were theoretically 100% enforced across the board. They couple that with the predictions from the UN a few weeks ago, which estimate the population as it actually will be with the current one-child policy, a policy that has been unevenly implemented with various exemptions and rigidity across China. According to the Economist's chart, if the one-child policy had been enforced strictly, China's population would shrink to less than 200 million within the century! Man, that'd make for a lot more empty cities. More from the Economist here. more ›

In case you're like us and didn't believe that China would one day be bested by India for Heavyweight Population Champion of the World, this news graphic should put us doubters to rest. Then again, perhaps part of the disbelief stemmed from the difficulty of conceptualizing such a shifting of population rank, which we now understand to be a large circle becoming only a somewhat larger circle, with another circle usurping the other circle's diameter through a more substantial magical future expansion. more ›

We hope this will ease the squeeze in downtown Shanghai: "More than 4.4 million residents will be encouraged to move to the suburbs in 2020 after the city government pledged to build seven new towns with full public service facilities and more job opportunities, the city's urban planner revealed yesterday." The seven towns planned are Jiading, Songjiang, Lingang (in Pudong), Qingpu, Nanqiao (in Fengxian), Jinshan and Chongming. more ›

"Marriage in China has entered a phase of uncertainty," declares Chen Yijun, a marriage and family researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in yesterday's People's Daily. "The traditional Chinese marriage model has broken down amid the rapid transformation of Chinese society." more ›

It appears that feeling guilty about ignoring your parents isn't good enough for Chinese lawmakers. The Law Enforcement Inspection Committee, a group associated with the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, is in the process of revising the Elderly Rights and Interests Protection Law. more ›

"A total of 593,832 foreigners were living on the Chinese mainland at the end of 2010, data from the sixth national census reveals. The top three home countries of the foreigners were South Korea, the United States and Japan. Among the foreigners living on the mainland, 56.62 percent or 336,245 were males and 43.38 percent or 257,587 were females. Foreigners on the mainland were surveyed for the first time in the census. A total of 234,829 Hong Kong residents and 21,201 Macau residents were living on the mainland in November, the census results showed. Among those Hong Hong residents living on the mainland, 141,321or 60.18 percent were males. Males accounted for 55.22 percent, or 11,708, of the total number of Macau residents living on the Chinese mainland, the census found. And a total of 170,283 Taiwan residents were living on the mainland in November. Of them, 116,547 people or 68.4 percent were males." [Shanghai Daily] more ›

National Geographic went searching for someone interesting lately: the world's most typical person. The researchers at the venerable magazine concluded that a male, 28-year-old Han Chinese man is the most typical person on the planet. They number 9 million. Then using that profile, they took 200,000 photos of men fitting the description and created a composite to see what the world's most average face would look like. more ›

Six million census takers given the gargantuan task of counting the world's most populous country began making their rounds yesterday, but despite the government's efforts to accurately account for the population, two groups in particular are proving troublesome. more ›

Thought it was crowded enough here? Shanghai's population is only set to grow, with the city's Population and Family Planning Commission estimating that it will reach 21.4 million in 2015 and 22.5 million in 2020. But officials assure us that more people doesn't mean less space - apparently the density of the Inner Ring Road area has actually been dropping the past five years (though that might have to do more with apartment complexes crowding out lane neighborhoods). more ›

Did you know that the one-child policy has been in effect for almost three decades? With the 30th anniversary approaching, Marketplace has an amazingly comprehensive feature on the vast social changes erected by this sweeping regulation - how it affected parents, the children themselves and all of society. They even have a quiz (test all you know about the one child policy!) and this handy infographic above (made even more handy by little info pop ups when you click on certain years). Worth a look, definitely. more ›

Here's an infographic of 60 Chinese cities with a population of over a million by Chinfographics.com. Shanghai's at the top, of course, with an "urban area population" of 14.24 million while Qiqihar in Heilongjiang is at the bottom with 1.04 million people (who knew it was that crowded even up there!). Interestingly enough, Taiwanese cities make up five of the metropolitan areas listed. more ›

Trained census workers will visit residential complexes, hotels and even prisons to collect information on people's ages, nationality, levels of education, profession and population migration, said officials from Shanghai Statistics Bureau, the government department in charge of the census in the city. more ›

Shanghai made it to the top of China's list of fastest developing cities in 2009, beating out Beijing and Tianjin by a pretty wide margin both in terms of population and GDP per capita. According to China.org.cn, the cities were evaluated on a "comprehensive assessment basis" that took into acount the size of the economy, number of employed, and location and infrastructure, as well as financial things we don't quite understand - like fixed assets investment, gross output of industrial enterprises, etc. But don't pat yourself on the back just yet - we haven't gotten top spot in everything. Says Shanghai Daily, we're only third in China for efficiency of public services, despite spending the most out of anyone on that sector. Better get to fixing that, Shanghai - there's no place like first place! more ›

We thought we had heard enough about death this past weekend during the Qingming Festival, but in an increasingly populated city bursting with residents, something oft-neglected when it comes to the logistics of city planning comes from the more morbid end of the spectrum. That's right, we're talking about funerals. more ›

Dr Zhao Baige (vice-minister of the National Population and Family Planning Commission) said yesterday that there was a "very serious process" currently taking place regarding the review of China's infamous one-child policy. Her comments were typically tentative but the admission that the policy is under scrutiny from high level officials has been taken by many China-watchers to mean that a gradual relaxation of the rules could be on the cards. more ›