This Day, That Year

Item from Sept 23, 1989, in China Daily: These new houses (right) were built by fishermen at the Sanshandao township in Shandong province . ...

The central government is taking measures to improve farmers’ housing, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Construction.

The infrastructure and standard of living in rural China have improved greatly over the past few decades.

By the end of last year, almost all rural communities had access to electricity and telephone. In addition, every 100 rural households had an average of 19 computers and 69 mobile phones with internet connection.

Rural residents have also been enrolled in the national pension system since 2002.

Today, most of the farmers in China can receive at least 70 yuan ($10.50) in pension a month from the central government. They are also entitled to another sum of money from local governments, which varies from place to place.

Meanwhile, China’s urbanization rate has been rising fast. More than 56 percent of China’s population lived in cities last year, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planning body.

The number of people registered as permanent residents in cities expanded from 170 million in 1978 to 750 million in 2014 while the number of cities leapt from 193 to 653 in the same period, it said.

China is aiming to bring its urbanization rate to 60 percent by 2020, which will help another 100 million migrant workers to settle in cities over the next five years.