Drawing upon data from Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Aging Survey from 1998 to 2005 and using Cox hazard regression model,this paper analyzes impact of religious attendance on mortality risk of the Chinese oldest old,and examines the roles of physical/mental health,healthy behaviors and socioeconomic supports in this relationship,in order to test four types of theoretical models in the literature.The results show that religious attendance is correlated with mortality risk.However,the effects of other potential explanatory variables can reduce the association.The findings suggest that religious attendance may represent a proxy for physical health,especially among the oldest old.

 As the most populous country in the world,population issues have always been a tremendous challenge in the process of sustainable economic and social development in China. The theoretical proposition of "building a population-balanced society" becomes the new growing point of population theories with Chinese characteristics,and has great significance both in theory and practice. In this paper,we discuss the issues of population-balanced society from the perspectives of theory,existing dilemma and policy solutions.