ELDERLY PEOPLE IN CHINA
Respect for elders is often the basis for the way society is organized and has been at the foundation of Chinese culture and morality for thousands of years. Older people are respected for their wisdom and most important decisions have traditionally not been made without consulting them. Confucian filial piety encourages the younger generation to follow the teachings of elders and for elders to teach the young their duties and manners.
The elderly enjoy high status. Respect has traditionally been regarded as something earned with age. An emphasis on youth isn't as strong as it is in the West. Respect for the elderly is manifested through the custom of allowing the elderly people to go first, giving up seats to them on buses and generally deferring to them, helping them out and respecting their opinions and advise.
Old people are arguably among the happiest people in China. You can often find them singing and dancing in the parks or hanging out and joking around on the streets with their friends. Their cheerfulness appears to come from three sources: Confucianism, which teaches respect to one's elders; having a network of good friends; and the fact that older people, after a life of working hard, finally get a chance to kick back and relax and have their children take care of them.
Respect for Older People in China
Many codes of behavior revolve around young people showing respect to older people. Younger people are expected to defer to older people, let them speak first, sit down after them and not contradict them. Sometime when an older person enters a room, everyone stands. People are often introduced from oldest to youngest. Sometimes people go out their way to open doors for older people and not cross their legs in front of them.
When offering a book or paper to someone older than you, you should show respect by using two hands to present the object. On a crowded subway or bus, you should give up your seat to an elderly person.
Sometimes a comment based on age meant to be complimentary can turn out to be an insult. The New York Times described a businessmen who was meeting with some high-ranking government officials and told one them he was “probably too young to remember.” The comment was intended to be a compliment:—that the official looked young for his age—but it was taken as insult—that the officials was not old enough to be treated with respect.
Respect for elders is best expressed during the "elder’s first" rite, the central ritual of the Chinese New Year, in which family members kneel and bow on the ground to everyone older than them: first grandparents, then parents, siblings and relatives, even elderly neighbors. In the old days a son was expected to honor his deceased father by occupying a hut by his grave and abstaining from meat, wine and sex for 25 months.
Graying of China
Another consequence of a low birth rate and one-child policy is an increasingly older population. As of 2005 about 143 million people (more than 10 percent of the population) were over 60. This is more than population of all but about ten countries. The rate is expected to increase at a rate of 100 million a decade. By 2050, there are expected to be 438 million elderly, or one out of four Chinese, compared with one out of ten in 1980.
In Shanghai, people over 60 already make 21.6 percent of the population and are expected to make up 34 percent in 2020. Similar trend are occurring across the country, especially in urban areas where the working-age population is expect to peak in about 2015.
By 2050 China will have more than 100 million over 80. If things don’t change that means that just 1.6 working age adults will support every person aged 60 and above, compared to 7.7 in 1975.
Consequences of Graying Population
An aging population means that relatively small group of young people has to economically support a large number of elderly people. Health care and pension costs will soar as elderly people make up a larger portion of the population. There will be a labor shortage as the demands by the elderly exceed the ability to young people to meet them. The ratio of working people to retirees is dropping quickly. Immigrant labor will be needed to make up the shortfall.
China is the first nation to have to cope with a population that is geeting older before it becomes rich. The elderly population is expected to mushroom before the economy and society have the capability to deal with the problem. Already, China is racking up health care and pension costs it can not afford as people born in the 1950s and 60s begin retiring. By 2035 and 2040 the peak of the aging problem China will face a social security deficient of $128 billion.
As the working-age population shrinks, labor cost will rise. China’s aging population could undermine the advantages of low-cost labor by the middle of the 21st century. In 2007 China had six people in the workforce for every retiree but this ratio while fall to 2:1 by 2050.
Elderly People and Their Children in China
Old people have traditionally been taken care of by their children. Nursing homes for the elderly are still an alien idea in much of Asia. Those that enter nursing homes often feel as if they are being sent away and rejected.
Traditionally, grown children took care of their parents when they became old. Three in ten Chinese families have grandparents living in the same household. Things are changing quick. Just a few yeare ago, about 70 percent of China's elderly people, particularly in rural areas, live with their children or relatives while less than 1 million live in retirement homes.
The demographics expert Cai Feng told Newsweek the one-child generation are “more likely to be spoiled and self-centered. As adults, children of this generation lack the inclination to support their parents.” A law passed in 1996, stipulated that children were responsible for taking care of their parents in old age. Still a lot of young Chinese have said they are willing to take care of their elderly parents. In one survey, 66.2 percent of Chinese high school students said they planned to take care of their parents in old age (compared to of 15.7 percent of Japanese high school students).
In 2006, 42 percent of Chinese families consisted of an old couple living alone. In a survey in 2002, half of the elderly respondents said they preferred to live alone rather than with their children. The finding dispelled the concept that most elderly Chinese want to be taken care of by their children.
In China there are contests for best children, The winner of the Model Filial Daughter-in-Law contest in Shanxi in 2006 received $60 prize and the opportunity to compete in the national contest. She cheerfully took care of her father-in-law and disabled sibling for two decades. The winner of the National Person of the Year contest gave his mother one of his kidneys without saying anything. “My contribution to may mother does not compare to what she has given me,” he said. Dramas on state-run television that deal with filial themes include Nine Daughters at Home and My Old Parents.
There are newspapers ads that link lonely elderly people who feel ignored by their children with adult women who want to be adopted. The women, who tend to be married and and in their 40s, visit their elderly hosts on the weekends and do things like clean and play cards with their host. One host told Newsweek, “I consider them my real daughters now.”
Neglected Elderly People in China
Because of the one-child policy, elderly people will have less children to take care of them in the future. By 2024, it is estimated that a third or more of retired Chinese parents will have no living sons who have traditionally had the duty of supporting elderly parents. Already the cradle-to-grave welfare system is largely gone and single children are responsible for taking care of both their parents. This has made having daughters more favorable because they are more likely to take of their parents in old age.
These days many children don't want to shoulder the burden of taking care of their parents or don't have room in their homes. In some cases children that were spoiled when they grew up are shirking the responsibility of taking care of their parents. Already many villages across China are filled with old people and virtually void of children. Rates of elderly living alone or suffering from depression are rising. There are stories of elderly people abandoned in hospitals or suing their children for financial support.
One resident at a nursing home in Dalian told the Washington Post, “The nurses treat me better than my daughter”. A nurse at the home said, “When resident first arrive they cry almost every day, saying, ‘My children don’t want to take care of me. There’s no more filial piety.”
Zhang Kaidi, director the China Research Center on Aging, told the Washington Post, “People value money more than family ties. It is very dangerous. Parents have put all they have, all their money, attention and hope in their child, and they expect to get a return from him when they get old. But the rapid development of society has changed the traditional give-and-get social contact.”
Lack of Respect for Elders in China
As China has modernized there has been a cultural shift from a society oriented towards the respect of elders to one that celebrates youth. An executive for a Chinese market research firm told the New York Times, “We can see a kind of power shift to the younger generation. This is sort of sad. The older generation is being more silent in the family and more silent in society...Kids decide what kind of products we buy, where we should travel in our vacation...The kids are substantial decision makers. “ The change has been attributed to market economics and China’s one child policy.
In Shanghai, one community decided offspring would be fined if they didn’t invite their parents home for Lunar New Year. A neighborhood committee posted the names and faces of individuals that didn’t visit their parent at least once every three months.
The Beijing government has enacted laws in which children who fail to take of their aging parents face a jail term of up to five years. Few prison sentences have been given out since 2000 when a woman committed suicide in prison after she was sentenced to eight months in jail for refusing to support her mother in law. But that doesn’t mean prison sentences are never given. In 2003, a woman was sent to jail for a year for refusing to take care of her parents and striking them in a fight.
Retirement in China
Each year 3 million Chinese retire. The mandatory retirement age is 60 for men and 50 for women. One solution to the aging problem in China is to defer retirement for several years, but this wouldl mean fewer opportunities for young people entering the job market. Many companies want employees to retire early so more positions become available for young people.
Many retirees have a lot of time and limited resources. They like to hang out in the streets chatting with their friends or congregate in parks doing tai chi, ballroom dancing or some other activity. One elderly man told the New York Times, “Many old Chinese loving fly kites because it can take up much time, and its cost is free.”
In 2005, only 1 percent of Chinese older than 80 were in elder care facilities, compared to 20 percent in the United States. There are only 10 nursing home beds for every 1,000 elderly who need them.
There is an effort to open more private retirement homes and provide for the means for people to pay for them. Some elderly live happily in small profit-making retirement homes that cost $1,000 to get into and charge $90 a month. Residents do tai chi in the morning and receive frequent visits form their grandchildren.
The elderly population is unevenly distributed. Most live in the less well-off rural areas.
Exercise for the Elderly
Early each morning millions of elderly Chinese gather in parks to exercise and socialize. A 1995 nationwide fitness program helped establish some 30,000 recreation areas, where the elderly and others can congregate.
The elderly do tai chi, calisthenics and various kinds of dances and exercises. One 82-year-old regular at Shanghai’s Fuxing Park told National Geographic, “I dance rumba and cha-cha for my physique, but more importantly because it makes me happy.”
On study involving 37,000 elderly in China found that regular exercise among people 80 or older reduced the risk of mortality by 20 percent.
Elderly and Pensions in China
Fewer than 30 percent of urban dwellers have pensions and virtually none of the 700 million in the countryside have them. Only 15 percent of those that retire have pensions. The existing state pension system covers only a sixth of the work force and is already saddled with liabilities more than China’s GDP.
Rural peasants generally don't receive any pensions. They are taken care of by their families. Elderly couples in Beijing that receive a pension live on a combined pension of around $180 a month. Many receive much less than that.
Many elderly have been denied the comfortable pensions they thought the had been promised. One former rocket scientist who was forced to work as a bookkeeper at a restaurant to make ends meet told the Los Angeles Times, “I gave my youth to my country and did everything the party asked of me to do. Now I’m old and have no sense of security.. If I stayed home and dwelt on my resentment, I might die early from heartache. It’s better to work and do something with my time.”
The government is creating a special welfare program including pensions, health care and other programs to deal with the rising number of elderly. The government has said that as China becomes increasingly affluent it is its responsibility to operate such programs.
See Welfare System
Poverty and the Elderly in China
In the cities some retirees and pensioners get by on so little they subsist off cabbage and turnips and do not watch television or turn on the heat in their apartments because they can't afford the utility bills.
Already China is facing a situation in the countryside in which low-skilled peasants are forced to support themselves doing physical labor such as demanding field work as old age and disability set in.
There are alarmingly high suicides rates among the elderly, caused by loneliness or unwillingness to stick their families with large medical bills.
Image Sources: 1) Posters, Landsberger Posters http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/; 2) Photos, Beifan http://www.beifan.com/and Julie Chao http://juliechao.com/pix-china.html
Text Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, AP, Lonely Planet Guides, Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.
© 2008 Jeffrey Hays