(ECNS) -- About one in five, or 22.6 percent of residents in Beijing are senior citizens over 60 years old, according to the city's health white paper.
Of the regular residents with a Beijing ID, more than 3 million were above 60 in 2014. About 2 million or 15.3 percent were over 65 years old. More than 13.33 million of Beijing's 21.52 million regular residents had Beijing IDs last year.
The average life expectancy of city residents was 81.81 in 2014, which was a 0.3 increase on 2013 and closer to the average level of developed economies like South Korea, Germany or the UK. The average male life expectancy was 79.73 and the average for females, 83.96.
Chronic diseases were the number one threat to the health of Beijing residents; with the top three killers being malignant tumors, heart disease, and cerebrovascular disease, which together accounted for 73.2 percent of deaths.
Some 41,272 cases of malignant tumors were detected in 2013, which translated to a daily average of 113 Beijing residents being diagnosed with cancer.
Beijing is faced with challenges regarding caring for both the old and the young. The largest section of the urban population was born in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, the number of children under 10 years old has also increased.
Some 35.6 percent of residents aged between 18 and 79 were overweight. However, compared with 2013, the proportion of tobacco (28.6 percent) and alcohol (31.2 percent) consumers dropped 2.7 percent and 33.3 percent respectively.
