Beijing, Sep 22 (IANS): Chinese women's average life expectancy grew to 77.4 years in 2010, an increase of 4.1 years over 2000, a white paper issued on Tuesday said.

The state has worked hard to improve community-level maternal and child health services and managed to provide full life-cycle health services for women, said the white paper on China's gender equality and women's development.

By the end of 2014, there had been 3,131 maternity and child care institutions throughout the country, the Global Times reported.

The maternal mortality rate has fallen significantly, from 88.8 per 100,000 in 1990 to 21.7 per 100,000 in 2014, meaning that China has achieved the UN Millennium Development Goals ahead of time, the white paper said.

The gap in maternal mortality rate between urban and rural areas and between different regions has been further narrowed: the rural-urban gap decreased from a factor of 2.4 in 2000 to 1.08 in 2014.

In 2000, the maternal mortality rate of western China was 5.4 times that of eastern China; the figure dropped to 2.6 times in 2014.

The World Health Organisation lists China as one of 10 countries with high performance in maternal and child health, it added.