Nursing home visit raises questions of elder care
- By Wan Lixin
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, February 22, 2013
![Too little too late [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]](http://images.china.cn/attachement/jpg/site1007/20130222/001ec949c22b1291554414.jpg "Too little too late [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]") |
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Too little too late [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn] |
Shock of gray
Modern professional requirements and the enshrinement of individualism as emancipating and progressive have led to a new code of ethics that effectively evaluates individual worth in economic terms. Adding to that are complexities brought about by years of family planning.
On Monday's Wenhui Daily was a front-page package headlined "How to provide for the elderly couples who had lost their only children?"
These mainly refer to couples above 50 whose only children have died or been disabled. Being past child-bearing age, these couples are no longer able to have another child. There are no reliable statistics regarding the number of such couples, but it is estimated to be around 10 million.
According to one study in Shanghai, nationally about 218 million only children were born from 1975 to 2010. Given the probability of accidents and diseases, about 10 million children might die before age 25, meaning nearly 20 million parents would live without the consolation of their children in their middle and old age.
The issue looms so large that it became an important topic during the recently concluded provincial and municipal congresses. In the government report of Hunan Province, the plight of such couples was disussed and the first proposal made to the Jiangsu provincial congress was on assisting these families.
Some deputies to Shanghai's municipal congress reported that most of these couples were low-income and in poor health. In addition to their bereavement, they eventually will have to tackle serious problems of old age, including medical treatment and finding care-givers. Shanghai has around 7,000 such couples and the number is growing at 500 a year.
Before long these people will be in need of old-age care, but most are financially unable to afford expensive, privately run institutions. Gaining admission to public institutions can be difficult, typically requiring the written approval of children.
Government duty
The government is morally bound to provide for a situation that is, to a degree, an outcome of the family planning implemented since 1970s.
It is high time policy makers objectively reassessed the long-term impacts of artificially deflated birth rate on family structure, old age care, pension, and economic and social developments, as a fast shrinking pool of prime-age workers are compelled to provide for an expanding aging population.
Of course the care of the elderly is not an issue concerning only people who have lost their children.
Another long overlooked segment of the population is the elderly living in rural areas. For two or three decades, migrant youths have been encouraged to proffer themselves as cheap labor in cities far from their children and parents.
In one sense policy makers can afford to be so smug about decades of GDP growth simply because they can ignore the hidden costs of these left-behind children and elderly, now.
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