As a result of China's family planning policy and the improvement
of medical care, population development in that country has
entered a transformation process of "low fertility - low
mortality - negative growth." Shanghai took a lead in this
process and became the first area with an old population
structure. By the end of 1992, there were 2.06 million people
aged 60 and over in Shanghai, which was 16% of the total city
population; 1.39 million people, or 11% of the total, were aged
65 and over; and 198,000 people were over 80 years of age, which
accounted for 9.62% of the 60-plus group. According to
projections, the number of people over 65 will reach a peak of
four million in the year 2025, and then occupy 29% of the total
population. This exceptional character of the age structure of
the population of Shanghai lends the trend of ageing a degree of
seriousness which exceeds anything found in other countries or
regions.
Historically, the phenomenon of population ageing in such
European countries as Holland emerged after or simultaneously
with the attainment of high socio-economic development levels.
The transformation of a mature into an old population age
structure in these countries usually took 50-60 years, and they
generally have a greater capacity to deal with the resulting
economic and social problems. In stark contrast, in mainland
China it is estimated that this ageing process will take 18
years, and in Shanghai only six. In China, population ageing has
emerged too early and too rapidly, under circumstances of
relative socio-economic under-development. At present, quite a
few regions in China have entered the phase of population ageing,
and, like Shanghai, some major provinces and municipalities such
as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, and Tianjin have stepped into the
ageing process too early. It is estimated that by the year 2020,
the number of people aged 60 and over in the whole of China will
reach about 400 million.
Socio-economic problems
Just as the rapid growth of the Chinese population in the 1950-
60s attracted world-wide attention, the current dramatic increase
in the aged population has captured the interest of international
scholarly circles, because this ageing is the price China is
paying for its population control policy.
Family care has been China's traditional mode of old-age support
for several thousand years. At present, in the countryside, the
family is still the most reliable support for the elderly, and
there 80% of the aged live with their children or other family
members. The majority of the elderly continue to work because
they have no retirement pensions. By comparison, urban workers
can usually enjoy state retirement pensions provided by the
enterprises for which they worked. Of course, this is an
extremely complicated system, founded on the principle of
covering current expenses from current dues, which has come under
reform only very recently. In practical matters and
psychologically speaking, the family is still the mainstay of
daily life for the aged, both in the cities and in the
countryside. However, the transformation of society has placed
this traditional family old-age support model under attack from
all sides, and the old-age support function of the family is
weakening. The main problems are the following. (a) Changes in
family structure and residential modes. Just as families are
becoming smaller and more nuclear, the aged are losing the
position of respect and care they had within the family in petty
production society. Urbanization and industrialization have
weakened family members' dependence on the family; and as young
peasants migrate to cities, the care for the aged that the family
provided in the past is pushed on to the shoulders of society.
(b) The assault of the growing "generation gap" on family old-age
support. The development of the market economy changes people's
ways of living and their values, and traditional ethics and
morals also come under attack because of this. All kinds of
differences between the young and the elderly in ideas, customs,
interests, and preferences lead to a tendency towards separate
residence of the two generations, and has brought about an
increase in the number of elderly living on their own. (c) The
contradiction between the high efficiency and rapid pace of life
on the one hand and the gravely deficient, low-efficiency, social
services on the other. For a long time, the service sector in
China was severely underdeveloped. Investigations show that at
present the burden of care for the elderly falls mainly on
middle-aged people, in particular middle-aged women. Not only do
they need to participate in social productive activities, but
they also shoulder the double burden of bringing up the youngest
generation while taking care of the older generation. Rushing
between work and family, it is hard for them to provide good care
to the elderly. (d) The present situation of one-child families
has drastically changed the structure of care provision in the
family. As the rights within the family shift towards the young,
and the focus of the family shifts towards the child, the
attitudes of younger family members towards respect and care for
the aged become weaker, and the difficulty of family care is
increasing.
Reform of the social old-age security system
In investigating the social benefits and old-age security enjoyed
by the elderly in such European countries as Holland, we found
that, in order to improve the standard of living and the quality
of care of the elderly, it is necessary to develop the economy,
and simultaneously create a complete social old-age security
system.
In China, between the 1950s and 1970s, although retirement dues
were nominally deducted from the wages of workers in state-owned
enterprises, this money actually became "fake profits" for the
enterprises, and has been spent a long time ago. The people
working during those years are now on the threshold of old age
and have become a heavy millstone around the neck of the new
generation. If you walk into a collectively-run roadside barber
shop which was set up in the 50s, the young hairdresser will tell
you: "I am cutting your hair for Mr Zhang who now is 70 years
old." The elderly of today still have many children on whom to
rely, but 20 years from now, will the present single children be
able to support the retirement life of two generations of the
elderly?
Faced with an existing system of retirement pensions that was on
the verge of collapse, in 1993 Shanghai put a new system of old-
age security into practice. As this is in fact a combination of
an accumulative system and one that covers current expenses from
current dues, it has created a series of new dilemmas. In
establishing a new system the question of what kind of policy
should be adopted in order to mitigate the increasing social
differences between city and countryside, between different
cities, and between different regions, is perhaps the most
crucial problem for a China where a consistent view on what kind
of old-age security policy ought to be established has not yet
emerged.
Sun Changmin was a Visiting Exchange Scholar at the IIAS sent by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences from 20 April to 20 July 1996.