China's economic miracle can be attributed to the effective leverage of its demographic advantage. However, demography is just one of the many factors of economic growth. While China's demographic transition poses a great challenge to its economy, this is a common feature in all demographic economic processes, and cannot be simply blamed on China's population control policies. While quantity used to be the major population and economic problem facing China, at present and in the future the problem is characterized by a more complex nature involving population size, structure and quality impacting on economic development. A large population size does not equal a country success, and has become increasingly decoupled from hard or soft power in the postagricultural era. Considering population growth as a necessary condition for economic growth may blur the focus of population economic relations in the new development stage. Instead of using economic growth as a goal for designing population policies, policymakers should make their only priorities the improvement of the people's social wellbeing and the realization of their potential.

The traditional migration theory has been unable to explain the phenomenon of“flowing without transferring”during the process of Chinese rural－urban population migration． Based on the Todaro modelwith the perspective of rural population transfer，this paper constructs a two－stage migration model by introducing institutional factors into the model，while clarifying the connotation and necessity of rural population transfer and analyzing the relationship between rural population transfer and citizenization and urbanization．In the short term，individual migration decision is made with the maximization of expected net income;in the long term，family migration decision is made with the maximization of expected net family income including the net institutional benefits． Our model suggests that rural land system is the core factor affecting rural population transfer． Successful transfer of the rural population requires that rural land be entitled more functions，especially the property function，and further reform of rural land system，especially the transfer
system．

The regional perspective of“getting old before getting rich”in China is framed by the comparison in population ageing between less developed and more developed areas. Basing on the connotation of this phenomenon，this paper constructs measurement indexes to describe the phenomenon quantitatively and analyzes the severity，trends and causes of this phenomenon in China. The results show that，while trends in population aging in different regions across China are broadly consistent with regional levels of economic development，spatial patterns of ageing have been changing. The inter-regional trend of“getting old before getting rich”has become increasingly severe. The reasons why the phenomenon becomes increasingly serious are the dramatic growth in migrant population，which is highly age selective and concentrated in the developed regions.