China population: without adequate pensions, more elderly say goodbye to their golden years
- Compared to developed countries grappling with an ageing population, China is not equipped with a comprehensive welfare system
- For many rural residents, including migrant workers, retirement is a fantasy due to limited savings and pension plan coverage
Six days a week for 13 hours a day, 56-year-old Chen Qingling and her husband clean the corridors and bathrooms of an office building in Beijing to feed themselves and their son’s family.
While their wealthier peers spend retirement travelling, taking dance lessons and classes in Chinese tea culture and painting, Chen – who hails from the countryside in Henan province – does not have savings or a pension to live out her golden years in comfort.
“My son is still recovering from an injury and his wife stays at home to take care of their three young children,” Chen said. “If I don’t work, who will feed the five mouths? My father-in-law is 89 years old and visits the hospital a lot, which also costs a lot of money.
“There’s no spare money I can save up. It’s difficult, but I have to hang in there to keep living.”
China has been transformed from an agricultural backwater into the world’s No 2 economy over the past four decades, but as its population rapidly ages, the country has found itself unequipped with a comprehensive welfare system.
Some 264 million Chinese people were aged 60 and above in 2020, accounting for 18.7 per cent of the total population, according to the seventh national census released this year. Ten years ago, that figure was 178 million, or 13.3 per cent of the population.