Any country would be arduously challenged by how to put under effective and orderly urban management a floating population the size of China's.

A report published by the National Health and Family Planning Commission on Tuesday indicates that China's migrant population, those who have left their rural hometowns for employment or education elsewhere, reached 236 million in 2012, one-sixth of its total population.

According to the report, the average age of the huge floating population is 28 and more than half of them were born after 1980. Compared with their predecessors who headed to cities mainly to make a living, the new generation usually leaves home earlier and has a stronger will to settle in cities and integrate themselves in the urban areas where they dwell.