Chinese researcher's story reflects country's ageing problems

Zhao Yaohui has been working out of her office at Peking University's National School of Development for almost a decade, and it shows. Bookshelves on facing walls are packed to the brim, mostly with economic tomes, random items are piled on the floor, and a hair dryer hides under her computer table.

She offers me a drink and a seat - on her sofa bed. "The office is messy," says the softly spoken Zhao. "I got the hair dryer yesterday because I rushed out and didn't have time to dry my hair."

Work seems to be her life, but it soon becomes clear that the reverse is actually true: Zhao's life has a profound influence on her work. An economics professor, Zhao is a principal investigator of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). A massive biennial survey, it will provide the bedrock of data for Chinese policymakers who must find ways to care for the rapidly ageing nation.

More than 17,000 participants, aged 45 and older, are interviewed on a broad range of topics from socioeconomics to physical and psychological health. Figures from the baseline study, released last week, show that a third of China's elderly (people aged 60 and above) report poor health, and a quarter are struggling below the poverty line.

Rural residents, who make up about 70 per cent of the population, tend to be worse off in health and wealth. Using consumption as a measure of standard of living, the poverty rate among rural elderly is 29 per cent compared to 10 per cent of urban elderly. Fifty-seven per cent of rural elderly receive no pension, compared to 16 per cent of their urban counterparts.

In many ways, Zhao, 49, says she identifies with the study's findings. Born in Beijing, Zhao and her family moved to Xuzhou in Jiangsu province when she was little. She returned to the capital to attend Peking University, completing her masters in economics there. She headed to the University of Chicago on a scholarship, obtained her PhD in economics, and later taught at George Washington University.

Zhao has taught at Peking University since 1996 and is comfortably off, but she too struggles to care for her elderly parents. Her father, aged 80 and suffering from Parkinson's, and mother, 78, now live in Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, about 280 kilometres southwest of Beijing.