Embodiments provide a paging method and apparatus. The method includes receiving, by user equipment (UE), a system message broadcast by a base station, where the system message carries a system parameter and configuration information of a paging message, and the configuration information includes time-frequency information of the paging message. The method also includes determining, by the UE, a paging cycle, a paging frame (PF) and a paging occasion (PO) subframe according to the system parameter, and determining, by the UE according to the configuration information, a time-frequency resource occupied by the paging message in the PO subframe. The method also includes detecting, by the UE within the paging cycle according to the PF, the PO subframe, and the time-frequency resource, whether the paging message exists in a physical downlink shared channel PDSCH.