Plight of China's elderly
The elderly in China are a sorry lot. One in 10 Chinese is above 60 and most elderly live in the countryside. With hardly any savings, no income and little help from the authorities, they are struggling to get by and their greatest fear is falling ill.
By Goh Sui Noi
BEIJING - Madam Lu, 63, scrapes for a living on her small fruit orchard in the outskirts of the capital together with her unemployed second son, earning about 600 yuan (S$125) a year.
Tough times for this elderly woman as she rests beside a pedestrian overpass in Beijing. Her social security comes from passers-by kind enough to give her their small change.
She has pain in her knees but dares not go to the doctor because she has no money to pay him.
Not only in the countryside but also in the cities where most senior citizens still draw a pension, falling ill is a frightening prospect because it can plunge pensioners into financial difficulties.
Their average monthly income in a city is 739 yuan and in places such as Beijing, pensioners must pay a minimum of 1,300 yuan for outpatient medical care within a year before they can receive medical subsidies of between 70 and 80 per cent.
The initial outlay amounted to two months' income, said gerontologist Pei Xiaomei.
The expert on ageing added that with expensive medical care and low income, falling ill for old people usually meant a strain on their living conditions.
The situation is worse in rural areas, where 70 per cent of China's 134 million senior citizens live.
The elderly there have almost no medical insurance or social security and their average monthly income is a mere 113 yuan.
Lack of affordable medical care for the elderly is symptomatic of a lack of preparation for China's rapidly ageing society, experts say.
China became an aged society in 2000 with 10 per cent of its population above the age of 60. It happened 20 years after implementation of a one-child family planning policy and at a time when China had a still-developing economy with a per capita income of less than US$1,000 (S$1,720).
Even as the one-child policy was adopted, scholars warned of a consequent and rapid ageing of society but their warnings were largely ignored, said Mr Zhang Kaiti, deputy director of the Chinese Research Centre on Ageing.
The result was that China was not well prepared for the problems of an ageing population.
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