Using data from the 7th National Census of China and the United Nations' “World Population Prospects 2022”, this study analyzes the trend of China's population ageing. The findings reveal that the Chinese population is ageing rapidly. The ageing process will accelerate in the future, moving towards moderate and severe ageing. Consequently, the burden of old-age care will continuously increase. Meanwhile, the health and educational levels of the older population will also improve. In the context of continuous improvement of population quality, we take health status and educational levels into account when estimating the old-age dependency ratio. By replacing the population count with the total human resources, the revised old-age dependency ratio is lower than the traditional one, and its rate of increase is slower. This implies that the burden of old-age care for the working-age population in the future may not grow as rapidly as previously expected. With socioeconomic development and medical and health conditions improvements, population ageing needs to be measured with more comprehensive and appropriate indicators. This will help clarify the process of population ageing in China and actively respond to population ageing.

The life expectancy of the older people had increased steadily during 1998-2013 in Shanghai, but their disability-free life expectancy had changed from an increasing trend in 1998-2008 to a decreasing trend in 2008-2013. The period of disability had expanded in 1998-2003, then compressed in 2003-2008, and finally expanded again in 2008-2013 as their lifespan increased. The increase of disability-free life expectancy in 1998-2008 was mainly driven by the decline in mortality while the decline of disability-free life expectancy in 2008-2013 was largely due to an increase of disability rates, which offset the increasing effects of mortality reduction. The social and economic development, the advance of medical technology, and the practice of social security system in Shanghai are the main factors leading to the changes of the disability-free life expectancy. This transition from increase to decrease of disability-free life expectancy of the older people have been consistent with the rapid increase of per capita health expenditure in Shanghai since 2008.