Struggling with solitude and stress, China's elderly are finding themselves left by the wayside.
If current trends continue, China’s population will peak at 1.44 billion in 2029 before entering “unstoppable” decline, according to a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences study.
China's economic transformation has brought wrenching social change, with a nation of farmers flocking to cities, and birth restrictions wreaking havoc on traditional family structures.
Young people have abandoned ancestral villages, leaving their parents in the countryside – a generation now struggling with solitude even as its health deteriorates and its economic circumstances languish.
A grey wave
The country has 249 million people over the age of 65 – three quarters of them still live in rural areas.
Introduced in 1980 to reduce the number of hungry mouths to feed, the policy eventually began to act as a hitch on growth, prompting Beijing to permit parents to have two children from 2016.
But China, whose extraordinary economic heft has been built on labor-intensive manufacturing and which has no social safety net to protect the aged, is uniquely ill-prepared for the societal changes this gray wave will bring.
Eighty-year-old Ms. Kong, lives in the rural village of Duntouyao, a former communist commune, 2500 kilometres from Shanghai.
She has dementia and Parkinson’s disease and, like an increasing number Chinese elderly, she lives alone, with no carer.
Ms Kong said she feels abandoned by her son. Source: Dateline
“Our country is so rich now. Myself is so useless. I’m useless and not educated. The country should have been taking care of me long ago. How can I be this poor?” she said.
China’s economic boom comes at a cost
The scale of the problem is partly due to the legacy of the one-child policy - one of history’s biggest social engineering experiments.
Introduced in 1980 to reduce the number of hungry mouths to feed, the policy eventually began to act as a hitch on growth, prompting Beijing to permit parents to have two children from 2016.
This new industrialised and westernised generation found it economically infeasible to live with the elderly or care for them at a distance.
It became socially acceptable to abandon parents in favour of pursuing financial goals. This new generation of children became known as “China’s baby boomers.”
Ms Kong found herself alone when two children moved for work and another died of cancer.
“I didn’t know my son would abandon me,” she said.
These days, it’s Xiaoqing, Ms Kong’s granddaughter who has taken on responsibility for her care.
Across China many young people like Xiaoqing are stepping up to the plate, and they’re being encouraged.
Beijing believes that the concept of filial piety - taking care of one’s elders - may be the only way to solve its ageing crisis. In 2013, it introduced its “Elderly Rights Law”.
According to the legislation, parents have the legal right to request government mediation or even file a lawsuit against children who fail to regularly drop by for a visit or give them a phone call.
Despite investing heavily in the aged care sector, Beijing wants 90 per cent of elderly to live in their own homes in the future, with their families providing care once again.
