BEIJING - China has 236 million floating people - those who left their places of origin to seek employment or education elsewhere - in 2012, one sixth of its total population, with more than half of those labor-age born after 1980, said a health official on Tuesday.

Wang Qian, director of the floating population division of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said that the new generation of the floating population, with an average age of 28 in 2012, leave home at a younger age and show more preference to living in big cities.

Wang said 75 percent of the new generation left their hometown before they were 20 years old, and more than 70 percent expect to settle down in big cities.