Life expectancy of Beijing residents hits 82.31 years

BEIJING -- The average life expectancy of Beijing's registered permanent residents reached 82.31 years in 2019, according to a report published Sunday.

Jointly released by the Office of the Beijing Municipal Committee on Aging and the Beijing Association on Aging, the report noted that the city's total population of permanent residents aged 60 and above had increased from 3.4 million to over 3.7 million during the 2015-2019 period.

Beijing's old-age dependency ratio was 44.3 percent last year, which means every 2.3 working-age people in Beijing were supporting one senior citizen. The city also registered 1,046 centenarians as of the end of 2019, exceeding 1,000 for the first time, the report read.

Sun Liguo, deputy head of the association, said Beijing has been improving social security for the elderly over past decades. The basic old-age pension for enterprise retirees has been raised for 27 times since the 1990s to 4,157 yuan (about $620) per month in 2019.

The city had built a total of 297 elderly care centers and 1,003 community elderly care institutions and had 1,558 elderly care enterprises by the end of last year, Sun added.