朝鮮近日發(fā)布了自1993年以來的一次人口調(diào)查統(tǒng)計。根據(jù)這份調(diào)查報告，朝鮮人口總數(shù)有略微增長，但人口老化現(xiàn)象明顯、人民健康水平下降；婦女難產(chǎn)死亡率及嬰兒死亡率都有所升高；平均預期壽命降低……

調(diào)查還從側(cè)面顯示了朝鮮國內(nèi)的經(jīng)濟結(jié)構(gòu)：從事農(nóng)業(yè)生產(chǎn)的人數(shù)最多，其次是政府部門和軍隊職員，接下來是教育，再其次是工業(yè)……而外界一直以來估計的一百萬軍隊數(shù)量，根據(jù)這份報告也只有不足70萬人。

SEOUL-North Korea is getting bigger, older and less healthy, according to data from the country's latest census, and its fabled million-man army might have fewer than 700,000 people.

The authoritarian government in December released results of the census conducted in 2008, saying its population had climbed to 24 million people from 21.2 million in the previous census in 1993.

More details have been published by the United Nations Population Fund, which helped North Korea conduct the census and sent five teams of observers to monitor it.

Even so, it's difficult for outsiders, with so little access to the country, to be certain of the precision of North Korea's data. For decades, the government has cut off the dissemination of most information about the country. The new census numbers provide a rare glimpse of official statistics.

The census reported that North Korea's population grew at an annual average rate of 0.85% for the 15-year period, a time that included a devastating multiyear famine that analysts and foreign aid agencies estimate killed between one million and two million people.

A separate U.N. report published last year found that North Korea's population has grown more slowly since 2005, at an annual rate of 0.4%. The global population has grown 1.2% annually since 2005, the U.N. report said.

North Korea's census said the country's population has proportionately fewer children and more middle-aged people than it did in 1993.

It also reported that people are less healthy.

Babies are more likely to die: The infant mortality rate climbed to 19.3 per 1,000 children in 2008 from 14.1 in 1993, though North Korea's rate is still well below the world average, which a 2009 report by the U.N. agency put at 46 per 1,000 children.

North Koreans are living shorter lives-average life expectancy has fallen to 69.3 years from 72.7 in 1993.

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