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- I'm surprised at how large the population has gotten over the years.
- I learned that this is a major problem in China and the extents they are going to to try and fix it
-Why didn't they do this earlier?

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china thought they were the very center of the world,to be fair china was very isolated from the rest of us with harsh physical features surrounding them. Western China is made up of mainly many plateaus and basins. Central China has lower mountains, hills, and plateau. in central asia there is also the gobi desert.eastern china is where all of the good farmland is, you would find vast plains, long rivers, and rich soil. China has a very vast population and the video below explains the growth rate over time and how china was the first one.

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7 Billion: How Did We Get So Big So Fast? | SKUNK BEAR

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Something that surprised me was the things that they had to do to prevent the population from growing.

I learned the many ways that overpopulation can affect the clean energy

I wonder how it got so overpopulated to begin with

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As late as 25 years ago, China was concerned it had too many children to support. Today, however, China faces the opposite problem: as a result of the success of its "one-child" policy, the country faces the prospect of having too few children to support a rapidly aging population (see Figure 1 for China's projected aging trend between 2000 and 2050).

Figure 1
Population Pyramids, China: 2000 and 2050

Source: World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision (2005).

The dramatic fertility decline and improved longevity over the past two decades are causing China's population to age at one of the fastest rates ever recorded, accompanied by an increase in the prevalence of chronic disease and disability in the population.

Meeting the health and long-term care needs of this growing elderly population will result in soaring health care costs-and with a shrinking working-age population to help pay the bill. Indeed, the challenge of paying for health care in China is immense, especially since the Chinese health care system has already experienced large increases in overall costs and greater private expenditure since shifting to a market-oriented system in the early 1980s. ¹

But while China is not prepared to meet the health needs of its growing elderly population, its government has recognized these challenges and is starting to develop a comprehensive response. As a first step, Chinese health officials have implemented various chronic-disease prevention programs at the national level. They are also starting to set up long-term care delivery systems for the elderly. But while China's economy continues to grow rapidly, whether it will be able to allocate enough income to meet these rising health care costs remains as a major concern.

A Profile of Aging, Chronic Disease, and Disability

China has made vast improvements in health over the past five decades, with life expectancy at birth increasing by two-thirds from 40.8 to 71.5 between 1955 and 2005. ² The country already has about 102 million elderly (those ages 65 and over), or over one-fifth of the world's elderly population. ³ And the percentage of elderly in China is projected to triple from 8 percent to 24 percent between 2006 and 2050, to a total number of 322 million (see Figure 2). ⁴
Figure 2 Percentage of Older Adults (Age 65+) in China, 1950-2050
Source: World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision (2005).

Because chronic health problems become more common in old age, China's population aging has led to increases in the country's prevalence of chronic disease and disability, creating a greater need for long-term care. And improved living standards in China have exacerbated the epidemic of chronic disease by increasing exposure to major risk factors such as smoking, high-fat and high-calorie diets, and more leisure time without physical activity.

Chronic diseases accounted for almost 80 percent of all deaths in China in 2005, with the major causes being cardiovascular disease, cancer, and chronic respiratory diseases. ⁵ Hypertension prevalence in adult population (currently 19 percent) has increased by one-third over the past decade. ⁶ Prevalence of obesity, though still around 7 percent, has almost doubled in a decade. These trends suggest potential increases in the prevalence of these conditions for future cohorts of China's elderly.

Demographic Trends Endanger the Chinese Health Care System

The rate of increase in health care costs has already exceeded the growth of the national economy and individual earnings. ⁷ Long-term care for the elderly, traditionally provided at home in China by adult children (especially by daughters-in-law), will become increasingly less feasible in coming decades when parents of the first generation of the one-child policy start reaching old age and retiring. These singletons will face the need to care for two parents and often four grandparents without siblings with whom to share the responsibility, a problem sometimes referred to in China as the "4-2-1 problem."

And the macro-level outlook for health care spending is no better. While the number of elderly in the population who require care is growing, the size of the working-age population (who pay much of the health care costs) is shrinking. The elderly-support ratio-the working-age adult (ages 15 to 64) per number of elderly (age 65 and above)-is projected to decline drastically, from 9 persons to 2.5 persons by 2050. ⁸

This demographic shift is troublesome for a health care system that already faces a number of challenges-most important of which is the rapid increase in overall costs and in private health care spending. ⁹ The health care system in China-once regarded as exemplary for low-income agrarian societies-has degenerated considerably in access since the early 1980s at the same time as its costs have soared. A system that relied heavily on public subsidies and provided egalitarian access to basic health care has shifted to a market-oriented system that relies heavily on private funding and is characterized by excessive usage fees.

Now, rising out-of-pocket costs prevent many Chinese from seeking early care and have resulted in wide disparities in health care access, particularly between urban and rural areas. These trends are of particular concern to the elderly, who likely have higher health care needs yet less means to afford that care, and who also make up larger proportion of the rural population than the younger population.

Public Health Responses to Population Aging

The Chinese government has only recently acknowledged the consequences of rapid population aging and has started to address them in various policies and programs:

Strategies for long-term care. Though public funding for the long-term care of the elderly in China is still limited, the Chinese government has started to allocate more funding in this area. ¹⁰ At the same time, new opportunities for entrepreneurship in the health service industry have opened-a result of China's social-welfare reform in the 1990s, which decentralized government-funded welfare institutions and significantly reduced their government financing. ¹¹

Today, an increasing number of private elder homes as well as the country's former government-sponsored elder homes (which used to be reserved exclusively for elderly with no children and no other means of support) are providing an alternative to familial elder care. ¹² However, these facilities are still small in number, of varying standards, and are often too expensive for many elderly and their families.

Community-based long-term care services for the elderly in China-both informal and local government-supported-have also begun to emerge, especially in urban areas. ¹³ These efforts are serving various needs of the elderly and their family caregivers, including daily care, home maintenance, and information and referral services. ¹⁴

The lack of a trained workforce in caregiving to elderly is an important issue facing China's long-term care delivery system. ¹⁵ Some local government agencies (such as the labor union and the department of health) are training laid-off workers to work in long-term care-but these training programs are short and cover only limited basic caregiving skills.

Some observers are calling for more knowledge-based training programs that offer a broader range of caregiving skills. Besides long-term care, the government has plans to develop geriatric medical training at an undergraduate level and to establish more geriatric units to increase the country's capacity to address the specific health care needs of the elderly. ¹⁶

Strategies for primary and secondary prevention. China's ministry of health has also been addressing chronic disease prevention and control. In 2002, for instance, it established the National Center for Chronic and Non-Communicable Disease Control and Prevention to oversee efforts at the national level; the same year, it unveiled the Disease Surveillance Points System, a national resource for chronic disease surveillance. ¹⁷

The ministry is also working to develop the first long-term (from 2005 to 2015) comprehensive national plan for chronic disease control and prevention in cooperation with relevant sectors and supported by the World Health Organization (WHO). Reducing adult male smoking, hypertension, overweight and obesity, and building capacity for chronic disease control are among the plan's highest priorities.

Programs targeted toward specific diseases have also increased. These efforts include a community-based intervention on management of hypertension and diabetes conducted in three cities (Beijing, Shanghai, and Changsha) between 1991 and 2000; a national cancer control plan, the Program of Cancer Prevention and Control in China; and ratification of the WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control. Furthermore, to prevent chronic disease at early ages, projects to improve nutrition and health status have been undertaken. These projects are focused mainly on primary schools and have achieved encouraging reductions (by as much as 30 percent in one year in one example) in the prevalence of childhood obesity. ¹⁸

Outlook for the Future

The challenges of population aging are daunting for any country, but especially so for China. Unlike developed countries where economic development preceded population aging, China faces the massive demands of population aging at one of the fastest rates ever and while its economy is still not fully developed-hence, without the funds necessary to address the demands. China's dilemma is how to allocate resources among competing needs of various sectors while still continuing its economic growth.

In addition to the 4-2-1 problem, trends in both the female labor-force participation and the sex ratio of young Chinese may well create additional issues for a society which traditionally has left elder care to its women, especially daughters-in-law. The labor-force participation among young Chinese women is very high and could affect the informal provision of long-term care in the coming decades. The sex ratio at birth for the young cohorts born after China's one-child policy is highly skewed toward boys, potentially creating a future deficit of daughters-in-law as elder caregivers. ¹⁹

While the trend of population aging is inevitable and can even be accelerated by further declines in mortality and fertility, stemming the epidemic of chronic disease is one promising way to reduce the overall impact of aging on China's social and economic development. Investing in a formal long-term care system to complement the informal care currently provided primarily by family members could also encourage their continued participation in the provision of care. Addressing these elder care challenges will be crucial to China's continued social and economic development and stability.

References

1. Liming Lee, "The Current State of Public Health in China," Annual Review of Public Health 25 (2004): 327-39.

2. United Nations Statistics Division, UN Common Database, accessed online at www.unstats.un.org, on April 17, 2006.

3. United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision (New York: United Nations, 2005).

4. United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision.

5. Longde Wang et al., "Preventing Chronic Diseases in China," Lancet 366, no. 9499 (2005): 1821-24.

6. Longde Wang et al., "Preventing Chronic Diseases in China."

7. Liming Lee, "The Current State of Public Health in China."

8. United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision.

9. Bates Gill, "China's Health Care and Pension Challenges," testimony before the U.S.-China Security and Economic Review Commission Hearing on Major Internal Challenges Facing the Chinese Leadership, Feb. 2 and Feb. 3, 2006, accessed online at www.csis.org, on April 17, 2006.

10. Bei Wu et al., "Emerging Services for Community-Based Long-Term Care in Urban China: A Systematic Analysis of Shanghai's Community-Based Agencies," Journal of Aging & Social Policy 17, no. 4 (2005): 37-60.

11. Heying J. Zhan et al., "Recent Developments in Institutional Elder Care in China: Changing Concepts and Attitudes," Journal of Aging & Social Policy 18, no. 2 (2006): 85-108.

12. Zhan et al., "Recent Developments in Institutional Elder Care in China."

13. Bei Wu et al., " Emerging Services for Community-Based Long-Term Care in Urban China."

14. To provide guidelines and regulations for the rapidly growing number of organizations providing various services for the elderly, the Chinese Civil Affairs Ministry published Basic Regulations for Social Service Organizations for Elders in 2001 (accessible at http://shfl.qingdao.gov.cn in Chinese), cited in Zhan et al., "Recent Developments in Institutional Elder Care in China: Changing Concepts and Attitudes."

15. Bei Wu et al., "Emerging Services for Community-Based Long-Term Care in Urban China."

16. Jean Woo et al., "Ageing in China: Health and Social Consequences and Responses," International Journal of Epidemiology 31, no. 4 (2002): 772-75.

17. Longde Wang et al., "Preventing Chronic Diseases in China."

18. Longde Wang et al., "Preventing Chronic Diseases in China."

19. Jane Zhang, "Long-Term Care for the Aged: Critical Issues and Challenges to China's Sustainable Development," World Review of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development 2, no. 1 and 2 (2006): 126-43.

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China's Concern Over Population Aging and Health

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As late as 25 years ago, China was concerned it had too many children to support. Today, however, China faces the opposite problem: as a result of the success of its "one-child" policy, the country faces the prospect of having too few children to support a rapidly aging population (see Figure 1 for China's projected aging trend between 2000 and 2050).

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Something that surprised me was how bad the pollution was

I learned how over crowded China is.

I wonder why people like it's the most populated place in the world

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THE SCIENCE OF OVER POPULATION: 10:00 but very informative

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THE SCIENCE OF OVER POPULATION: 10:00 but very informative

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Hank talks about the issues of rising global population. Like SciShow on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow Follow SciShow on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow References for this episode can be found in the Google document here: http://dft.ba/-25aG

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CHINA'S GROWING POPULATION: AFFECT ON THE ENVIORNMENT

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CHINA'S GROWING POPULATION: AFFECT ON THE ENVIORNMENT

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The Environmental Cost of China's Growth | The New York Times

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.How might money spent on health care affect a country’s rate of natural increase? Spending money on health care will make mortality rate drop.

.How might money spent on educating women affect a country’s rate of natural increase? Educated women usually have more control over the amount of children they have.

.How might a country with rapid population growth benefit by slowing its rate of natural increase?
Countries with lower rates of reproduction grow generally healthier, it is easier to educate less children, and helps save money for health care.

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.THE CHALLENGE: Increasing Jobs and Wealth.
Mao Zedong set up the economy to work within itself. Just as the economy was beginning to recover, another experiment was ensued. This experiment was meant to create a new society, in this society everyone would follow his ideas and needs and work for the common good of china. Due to this idea chaos was spread schools were closed, people considered unloyal were sent to prison, there weren't enough workers for farm and production facilities.

.THE PROPOSED SOLUTION: Special Economic Zones.
After the death of Mao, new leaders wanted to open up china to the rest of the world. The foreign companies demanded more freedom than the government wanted to release. So as a solution the created (SEZs) which have different laws than the rest of china. the laws change to, the seller has the right to sell whatever they want for how much they want.

.THE BENEFITS: More Jobs and Better Standard of Living
Shenzhen is the most popular of the (SEZ) zones with a population of 7 million people. China's (SEZs) have created millions of jobs. The workers also make more money than they would make outside an SEZ area.

.THE COST: Income Gaps and Crime
these special economic zones have created problems as well. One problem is that there is a gap that is beginning to form between the rich and the poor of china and is not spreading evenly. Also a problem is that a "floating population" is being created. Which means they drift between SEZ zones and non-SEZ zones and dont get paid enough

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Mao Zedong led an important revolution that brought the communist government to china in 1949. From that rebellion led the new republic of china.

THE CHALLENGE: rapid population growth
Mao in 1958 founded a program named the great leap forward. This programs motive was to make china become the world's modern industrial company.  one goal of "leap forward was to produce steel to do this he ordered everyone to melt their household metals. Another goal was to greatly increase the food production, and to do this they combined smaller farms into large factory farms. One major problem was china experienced another major drought that killed 20 million people due to lack of food.

THE PROPOSED SOLUTION: THE ONE CHILD POLICY
After Mao's death the government of china began the family-planning program named the one-child policy. This program made sure that for every marriage could only birth one child. the policy is still in effect today. Now though, the families that followed the law get cash benefits. And punishments are less severe.

THE BENEFITS: SLOWER POPULATION GROWTH
Thanks to the One-Child population many benefits have appeared. One benefit is that there is less strain on food and water storages. also there aren't to many workers for to few jobs, therefore many  many people can keep there jobs. Also families have benefits as well. Mothers and babies are healthier in a smaller family. parents have more money to spend on other things. and women have more time for a career

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.Meeting rising energy demands: china has the second largest energy consumption due to its population. 65% of china's energy takes coal.

.Generate more hydraulic power: hydroelectric power is one of the most environmentally safe, much safer than coal. forms of energy   The yangtze river dam is the largest dam in the world largest dam and provides 1/9 of china's energy.

.The Benefits: Clean Energy, Flood Control, and Shipping
The dam provides clean energy from a renewable resource. Also the dam extinguishes the threat of floods that used to happen every 10 years. The dam also helps with shiping. The yangtze river was very hard to navigate, but since the dam was built navigating has become much easier

THE LOSSES

.The water backed up by the dam has destroyed many ancient settlement sites.

.The backed up water has also destroyed 13 cities, 140 towns and hundreds of villages.

.Also thousands of plants and animals have lost there habitats.

.Also the dam sits on an earthquake fault. Some scientists believe that the weight of the dam could cause a major earthquake.

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In the 1870s there was a horrible drought in china and as a result of this drought there was not enough food to supply the large population of china. 10 million people died due to the large population. Since ancient times china has had a large population and many droughts. Despite many hard times china is still is one of the world's most populous countries one out of five people that live in this world live in china, and because of all of these factors added up china has made it a goal to reach zero population. Zero population is a goal to even out the amount of births and the amount of deaths in china. through out this padlet I will tell you chinas population issues and how the are trying to deal with it