Males have a higher mortality than females, and mortality becomes lower at younger ages and increases with age. Life expectancy at birth, which was around 40 years before 1949, was estimated to have reached 66.93 for males and 73.28 for females, according to the 1990 population census. Major causes of death in recent years are chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Once technological and medical breakthroughs occur in treating these diseases, new leaps in life expectancy improvement may be expected. The never married rates are positively correlated with years of schooling.
Proportions never married are higher among urban than rural residents.
Proportions of persons with spouses are higher in the towns than in the cities and counties. The divorce rates are higher in counties than in cities and towns. The rates of those never marrying or divorcing are higher for males than for females, and females have higher rates of being married and widowed than males. Household size has been shrinking in Hainan, with the mean size of the households dropping from 4.61 persons in 1988 to 4.49 in 1997. The oldest old population, i.e. those aged 80 and over, was 57,000.