Migrants make up 39% of Shanghai population

SHANGHAI has 8.98 million non-locals staying in the city for over six months, accounting for 39 percent of the city's 23.02 million residents, according to the sixth national census held last November.The population of non-locals, mainly migrant workers, has increased by 159 percent from the 3.46 million in the last census in 2000, the Shanghai Statistics Bureau said today.Though Shanghai has been considered an aging society, the age group between 15 and 64 years old actually increased 4.97 percent compared to that of 10 years ago, while the age group older than 65 decreased by 1.34 percent from the last census.Ren Yuan, professor of Fudan University, said the situation is a result of a large number of migrant workers pouring into the city during the past 10 years and "it helps to deal with the city's large aging population."Shanghai has lowered its threshold for outsiders to apply for hukou, or permanent residency. Ren considered it would help relieve the city of its burden of pension fund as the number of old people keeps increasing.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

40,000 hairy crabs released in Yangtze

Image
THE city government yesterday freed 40,000 hairy crabs into the mouth of Yangtze River near the Qingcaosha Reservoir, the first step in a five-year campaign to repair the ecosystem to improve the water quality in the reservoir that provides tap water for millions of residents. The hairy crabs will help establish a complete food chain in the river to help more fish and other aquatic animals survive in the river, Zhuang Ping, deputy director of the East China Sea Fisheries Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, told Shanghai Daily yesterday. The released crabs, about half female and half male, will eat plankton while some of their offspring will become food for meat-eating fish higher in the food chain, said Zhuang, who is leading the water-improvement program. "The better ecosystem the water has, the better its water quality will be," he said. With a capacity of 438 million cubic meters, the reservoir is providing tap water to about 10 million
Keep reading

Shanghai port consolidates its position as world's busiest

Image
SHANGHAI, the world's busiest container port, will consolidate its title this year and leverage its record throughput to become a multi-faceted provider of port services. The city, which overtook Singapore as the world's biggest container handler last year, saw its annual container traffic volume surpass 30 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) yesterday. The figure hits an unprecedented level in the world's port history and marks a new leg in Shanghai's voyage to become a global shipping center by 2020. China's remarkable trade boom is reflected in the Shanghai port numbers, which went from 7,951 TEUs in 1978 to 29.05 million TEUs in 2010. The city's customs oversaw a total of US$790 billion worth of imports and exports in the first three quarters of this year - a 19.3 percent year-on-year increase. And its port handled 23.9 million TEUs over the first 10 months, ahead of that of 23.56 million TEUs at Singapore Port. Shanghai International Port (Group) Co,
Keep reading

Praise, scorn for teacher's odd command

Image
A middle school math teacher has stirred controversy after forcing 20 of his students to slap their own faces for three minutes because they made noise in class and scored poorly on exams. Angry local residents are demanding that the teacher resign and asking the school to announce a punishment. But some of the teacher's students, including some who were forced to slap themselves, are calling for leniency. The incident occurred in a class at Donglu Middle School in Pudong on Tuesday when the math teacher surnamed Yang ordered 20 students in his class to slap their faces after he was irritated by them making noise in class. The students said Yang was known as a very strict teacher, so almost all the students obeyed his order and started slapping themselves in the face for about three minutes. Those who slapped too lightly were told by the teacher to slap harder, students told the Oriental Morning Post. Yang's behavior has sparked anger among local residents, especially so
Keep reading