China: Welfare for Old Will Be Challenge

Chinese elders enjoy a game of ping pong at a small public sport center downton Beijing, China Tuesday Dec. 12, 2006. China said Tuesday that creating welfare programs for its soaring numbers of elderly is a national priority, but warned that will be a daunting challenge in a rapidly graying society. China faces an acute demographic crunch due to birth-control programs that limit most urban couples to one child, which will cause the ratio of working people to retirees to drop sharply.(AP Photo/Elizabeth Dalziel) (Elizabeth Dalziel - AP)

BEIJING -- China said Tuesday that creating welfare programs for its soaring numbers of elderly is a national priority, but warned that will be a daunting challenge in a rapidly graying society.

With a population of 1.3 billion, China faces an acute demographic crunch due to birth-control programs that limit most urban couples to one child, which will cause the ratio of working people to retirees to drop sharply.

The government has launched pension, health care and other programs for the elderly, the Cabinet said in a report on aging. It mentioned no new initiatives.

"China regards the establishment of an old-age security system corresponding to the level of the country's socio-economic development and aging population as an important task and a priority area," it said.

But it cautioned that with the population of elderly people rising by 3 percent a year, paying for such programs will strain government finances.

The number of elderly Chinese people is expected to top 200 million by 2015 and 280 million by 2025, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Some 30 percent of the population would be classified as elderly by 2050, the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily said in October. But it said it was too early to lift restrictive childbearing policies.

"Given the absence of adequate social security provision, the economic and social consequences of aging will present a massive challenge to the Chinese government," said Bob Ash, a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London who studies the issue.

"The financial burden on the state to meet the needs of the aging population will be enormous all the more so, given that China is unlikely to attain the status of a rich country in the foreseeable future," he said.

Rapid economic development also has weakened traditional thinking that requires sons to support parents in their old age, while daughters are expected to aid only their in-laws, Ash said.

Rural families are especially dependent on children to support them in old age, and the report said 60 percent of China's elderly live in the countryside.

The government "has begun to study the establishment of an old-age social security system in rural areas in order to guarantee the basic livelihood of the elderly people there," the report said.

The report comes as the communist welfare system disintegrates under the pressure of economic reforms, with layoffs from state-owned enterprises and a lack of social safety nets for migrant workers.