Winton Dong

    dht620@sina.com

    BY the end of 2015, China had more than 220 million people over age 60, accounting for about 16 percent of the country’s population.

    It is estimated that the number of elderly people in China will continue to increase at a fast speed in the coming years and climax in the middle of this century at 400 million (more than 30 percent of the population), which means that almost one in three Chinese people will be more than 60 years old by then.

    According to the United Nations, a country is defined as an aged country if the number of its citizens aged over 60 accounts for at least 10 percent of its population, or if at least 7 percent of its population are over 65 years old. Judged by this standard, China became an aged society as early as the year 2000. China’s 5th national population census in November 2000 showed that people aged over 60 numbered 130 million, accounting for 10.2 percent of the total population.

    China is not the only country facing a rapidly aging population. The numbers of elderly in Japan, the United States, Britain and other developed nations in Europe are also swelling as the baby boomer generation starts to reach retirement age. However, the difference is that China is getting old before getting rich. The country’s GDP per capita was barely US$8,000 in 2015, compared with more than US$30,000 in developed countries (GDP per capita of the U.S. and Japan in 2015 was US$55,805 and US$32,486 respectively. Small European countries such as Luxembourg and Switzerland had per capita GDP over US$100,000 last year).

    China’s economic growth since its reform and opening has done great things to increase Chinese life expectancy. According to statistics, in 1960 the average life span of a Chinese person was less than 47 years. At present, life expectancies for men and women in China are 73 and 78 respectively, higher than the global average of 70. Moreover, improved health care and better nutrition has also lowered the mortality rate.

    Longer life spans and lower mortality rates, plus the one-child family planning policy, which curbed the growth of birth rates for more than 30 years, worked as a joint force accelerating China’s aging. However, in a culture which highly values filial piety, Chinese children, not society, are mainly depended upon by the elders for their care. In modern society, working-aged people who have to work in other cities or overseas, are facing growing psychological pressure and difficulties caring for their elderly parents. The situation is worse for the graying population who have to depend on their own subsidies or pension, and even worse for aged spouses who have lost their only child.

    No matter what kind of effort, experts say that China’s aging process is irreversible. What the government can do now is improve social infrastructure and the welfare system, along with using multiple channels to raise pension funds to make up for shortages. The Chinese Government has adopted the two-child policy and plans to adjust the 10-year retirement age gap between men and women and raise retirement age, to help mitigate or lower the impacts from a rapidly aging population.

    Much more than that, more public and private funds should be channeled into the elderly care industry, building of nursing homes, and in-home services for the aged, so as to form a harmonious society that not only is friendly to the aging population, but also relieves pressure on their children.

    We try the best not only for the benefit of the elderly, but also for the good of society as a whole, because every one of us, sooner or later, will be within the ranks of the graying population.

    (The author is the editor-in-chief of the Shenzhen Daily with a Ph.D. from the Journalism and Communication School of Wuhan University.)