There are nearly 100 institutions of higher learning such as the famous Peking University, Tsinghua University, over 1000 middle schools and 4500 primary schools in Beijing, with total enrollment of over 2 million. With the recent economic take-off, Beijing residents are generally well off in terms of living standard and are marching towards a more affluence life.

Education

Beijing, as one of the first cities to implement a compulsory nine-year primary and secondary education, is also the most advanced region in China in terms of education. It has 62 institutions of higher learning like the prestigious Peking University, Tsinghua University, People's University and the Beijing Normal University. These universities have a combined enrollment of 399,000 undergraduate students and 98,000 postgraduates. Around 40% of the Beijing residents who are between 18 and 22 years of age are receiving a college or university education.

Sports

Beijing saw a swift development of mass sports in 2002. Over 5.44 million Beijing residents participated in regular physic exercises. Ninety five per cent and above of primary, secondary and tertiary students met their respective physic exercise requirements.

There were nearly 3,000 sport grounds established for ordinary Beijing residents to carry out morning and evening exercises. Annual investment from the Beijing government on sports facilities targeting ordinary Beijing people totaled 180 million Yuan (nearly 21.69 million U.S. dollars).

By the end of 2002, there are altogether 4,674 various sport grounds and gyms in Beijing.

Beijing also saw steady improvement in terms of professional sports competition.

By the end of 2002, Beijing hosted 37 international and national competitions, 21 local competitions and 28 competitions participated by ordinary Beijing people.

Beijing won 110 medals from international and national sports competitions, among which 45 were gold medals and 36 silver ones. At the 2002 Pusan Asian Games, fifty-seven Beijing athletes and 17 coaches have been chosen to take part in 24 sports competitions on behalf of China. Twelve of them won 20 gold medals, eight silver medals and five bronze medals from seven sports competitions.

People's Living Standard

With the recent economic take-off, Beijing residents are generally well off in terms of living standard and are marching towards a more affluence life. In 2002, the average per capita disposable income of Beijing's urban residents was 12,463.9 Yuan (approximately 1,501.67 U.S. dollars) and the average living expenses was 10,286 Yuan (approximately 1,239.28 U.S. dollars) per person.

Consumption structure of Beijing residents has seen significant changes during recent years with the ever-reducing basic living expenses for survival and increasing expenditures devoted to leisure and development among the gross expenditures.

Engel's Coefficient for urban residents of Beijing was 33.8%. The per capita living space of urban residents in Beijing was 18.2 square meters. The average per capita disposable income of Beijing's rural residents in 2002 was 5,880 Yuan (approximately 708.43 U.S. dollars) and the average living space per person was 32.6 square meters.

Medical Care and Health

The medical care and public health service in Beijing is developing rapidly. It has a total of 466 hospitals, 69,000 hospital beds and 47,000 certified doctors. By the end of 2002, an average of 1,000 Beijing residents who owned 6.46 hospital beds were taken care of by 4.18 doctors.