An average of 3.9 million people have applied to join each year since 2012

The membership of the 98-year-old Communist Party of China has exceeded 90 million, the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee said on Sunday.

About 34 percent of Party members were born in the 1980s and 1990s, and nearly half hold junior college degrees or above, the department said in a report released ahead of the anniversary of the founding of the CPC on July 1.

Women comprised 27.2 percent of Party members and people from minority groups 7.3 percent, data from the report showed.

In terms of jobs, about 28 percent of Party members are from the agriculture and fisheries sector, 7.1 percent are workers, 8.3 percent are personnel from Party and government sectors, 2 percent are students, and 20 percent are retirees, the report said.

The CPC had 90.59 million members at the end of last year, an increase of 1.03 million from the end of 2017, and 4.61 million primary-level Party organizations, up by 39,000, according to the report.

It has seen its membership grow from more than 50 when it was founded in 1921 to 4.49 million when the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, and now to more than 90 million.

Statistics show that about 99.8 percent of existing Party members joined the CPC after the PRC was founded, and more than 80 percent joined the Party after the third plenary session of the 11th CPC Central Committee in 1978.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, an average of 3.9 million people have applied to join the Party every year, with the annual number of members recruited remaining steady at about 2 million in recent years, according to the report.

Last year, the CPC recruited nearly 2.06 million new members, 72,000 more than in 2017.

Among those new members, about 850,000 were women, 44.9 percent held junior college degrees or above, and 80 percent were aged 35 or younger.

Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said, "The increase in membership means more people, especially younger generations, are interested in joining the CPC because they have seen the achievements that the Party has led people to gain.

"Meanwhile, as the country is moving to pursue quality development, the Party needs talent from different walks of life. The educational background of the Party members has seen a big improvement in recent years," he said.

The CPC was founded on July 1, 1921. From 1921 to 1949, it led the Chinese people to overthrow the rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism and establish the PRC.

The CPC has led the Chinese people to develop the country into the world's second-largest economy and lift 700 million people out of poverty.

Xinhua contributed to this story.