Nearly 60 percent of people aged 60 and over in mainland China are empty nesters – an increase of more than 10 percentage points in a decade – and most say they cannot afford to live in a nursing home, according to a nationwide survey. The poll, conducted every five years by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, found that people in the age bracket were also less dependent on their children. The average number of children per household dropped by 0.6 over the decade to 2021 – to 2.6 children – as a result of the one-child policy introduced in the late 1970s. Some 130,000 people aged 60 and above took part in the survey in August 2021. At that time, the number of seniors 60 years of age or older in China had reached 267 million, representing 18.9 percent of the country’s total population.
“Eldercare services have become an important part of an active response to an aging population, with home-based eldercare being the conventional approach in our system for delivering eldercare services, as well as being the preferred choice for the broad majority of households and seniors,” said Li Banghua, deputy director-general of the Department of Elderly Care Services. In November 2021, the policy document “Opinions of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and the State Council on Advancing Efforts to Address Population Aging in the New Era” was released, which mapped out a detailed list of basic eldercare services, including various categories of services to be provided to different groups of elderly individuals. Meanwhile, the “National Medium- and Long-term Plan for Responding Proactively to Population Aging” explicitly put forward a proposal to establish a home visitation system for elderly individuals with special needs, aiming to offer monthly home visits to 100 percent of this group by 2025. Since then, a government countrywide system for home visitation and care services for the elderly with special needs has been implemented.
The most recent survey also found that nearly half of those willing to live in nursing homes could afford to pay up to 1,000 yuan (US$140) in monthly fees. That would put most aged care facilities out of reach in China’s big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where the cost is more than 5,000 yuan a month. “China’s traditional way – relying on children to support their elderly parents – is being seriously challenged,” the National Committee on Ageing, which is affiliated with the ministry, wrote in the survey report released last week. “The rapid growth of the empty-nest elderly population calls for better care services and coordinated policies to improve their well-being.” The world’s second-largest economy is grappling with an economic slowdown and the mounting pressures of a rapidly greying population alongside a shrinking workforce. In 2023, the number of people aged 60 and above reached 297 million, accounting for more than 21 percent of the total population, according to official data. The population aged 65 and over exceeded 217 million, making up 15.4 percent of the total.
China will raise its retirement age in January 2025.
The plan is to increase the numbers by up to five years by the year 2040 – from 60 to 63 for men and from 55 – 58 for white-collar females and 50 to 55 for blue-collar females. The decision comes as the country faces an ageing population and a declining economy. Most Chinese are pleased with the announcement and say they saw it coming. For a small minority, however, it’s “a pain in the neck.” When the change takes place, workers will only receive government pensions if they have paid into the system for twenty years. That is an increase of five years from the current 15-year rule. China’s previous retirement ages had been seen as significantly lower than those used in most developed economies. The change is seen as a measure to cope with a rapidly ageing population and declining birth rate, which have threatened to drain China’s pension fund.
