Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    MY mother will turn 99 after the approaching Chinese New Year. Over the years, my sisters, brother and I have tried our best to make her life comfortable at home. But her advancing age has made in-home care impractical. She became increasingly surly and grumpy, kept dismissing her caretakers, and constantly irritated my sisters. We have reached the end of our collective rope, physically and mentally. We decided to send our mother to a nursing home.

    To our relief, Mother soon got used to her life in the new home, a private facility, dispelling our initial fear that she would give the nursing staff a hard time.

    Several factors helped her quickly adapt to her new home, including the professional and meticulous care the facility provided and the social environment provided by the nurses and other residents. Another amusing reason for her satisfaction was the white lie we told her that everything she enjoyed there was free of charge.

    Of course, there is no free lunch anywhere. But given the quality of care the nursing home provides, the monthly cost of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan (US$470 to 627) is good value for money for me and my siblings.

    The acceptable rate is largely thanks to the government’s policy of covering a part of the cost at nursing homes with medical insurance, which means the beneficiary can have a certain portion of the expenses at a nursing home reimbursed by the insurers, thus enabling more elderly people to use facilities for the aged.

    The issue of aging populations is looming large for China. While the growing legion of persons who are 80 or 90 years old needs urgent care, their sons and daughters, mostly in their 50s and 60s, are also calling for imminent attention.

    Unlike the older people who normally had multiple children and can be cared for by their children at home, the majority of the people born after 1950 have only one child because of the one-child policy, and they can hardly rely on their children to offer them in-home care. The only place many elderly people with one child can spend their remaining years will be in a nursing home.

    Despite a gloomy picture in comparison with the warm and sweet big family with generations under one roof of the past, the silver lining of the dismal story is that the mounting numbers of the old people offer many industries the opportunity to target a growing and potentially lucrative market.

    According to the latest census data, by the end of 2014, China had had 212 million people aged above 60 and the number will rise to 350 million by 2034. It can be an enormous burden on society and families if the problem is not properly addressed. On the other hand, however, it heralds the advent of a “silver economy,” which can be defined as the economic opportunities arising from the public and consumer expenditures related to population aging and the specific needs of the population over 50. Huge quantities of aged-tailored products and services are to be provided to meet their needs, bringing more growth and jobs.

    Even as a layperson, I can think of a wide range of technologies and services applicable in aging-population-related industries: health monitoring, smart homes, driverless vehicles, online visit facilities that can assist with visiting residents in real time and care robots.

    Of course, the silver economy won’t grow and flourish of its own accord. Governmental support and incentive measures are indispensable. Relevant legislation should be a top priority. It’s undeniable that the institutional response to the acute issue of an aging population is rather tardy.

    Potentially, the silver economy is lucrative, but currently it is hardly profitable given such hurdles as the massive initial investment, the difficult availability of operational sites for nursing homes, high operational costs and a severe lack of professional carers, etc. In fact, few facilities for older people are profitable now.

    Comprehensive measures are called for to nourish and strengthen the silver economy, which could be worth trillions of yuan.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)