China wants to build a ‘silver economy’ for its ageing society – but who will keep it running?

Name: China reports first population decline in 6 decades, with birth rate at record low in 2022
Uploaded: 2024-02-13T22:00:24.000Z
Duration: 3 min 18 s
Description: China reports first population decline in 6 decades, with birth rate at record low in 2022

As China’s population ages and its working proportion shrinks, fewer families will be able to care for seniors by themselves

With growing demand for elder care facilities, government is funding the training of new personnel – but more is needed to overcome shortages

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As China’s population ages, a shortage of care workers presents a challenging problem for families and policymakers. Illustration: Ka Kuen Lau

Meredith Chen

Published: 6:00am, 14 Feb 2024Updated: 10:46pm, 19 Feb 2024

Homes for the elderly are businesses like any other. But when Yan Guizhen established her first care facility at the turn of the millennium, she was more interested in providing a necessary service than maximising profit.

Yan, 53, now manages six facilities that employ around 100 carers, tending to more than one thousand beds in China’s eastern Shandong province. But her dream to keep those of the older generation safe and comfortable has run into several snags.

With China’s population ageing fast, much like its neighbour Japan, she wonders how parents of the “one-child generation” can receive affordable care when they develop illness or disability.

“People are reluctant to take this job,” she said, attributing the understaffing to the industry’s low social status, training and income.

On average, each carer looks after three to six individuals at Yan’s homes, but there have been instances where one has to attend to up to 10 at once.

And demand for senior care has only continued to grow. By the end of 2022, 209.78 million – 14.9 per cent of the Chinese population – were aged 65 and above, outnumbering the combined populations of France, the United Kingdom and Thailand.

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China reports first population decline in 6 decades, with birth rate at record low in 2022

To make an already difficult problem worse, a growing number of newly retired parents have only one child – a consequence of Beijing’s strict implementation of a limit for most couples between 1980 and 2015 – which has put additional stress on the Chinese tradition of relying on offspring to care for earlier generations as they age.