Society

Educated old people helps health care

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-12-10 16:41

BEIJING - A national volunteer program that recruits college-educated people aged over 60 to help in health care, education and other fields has benefited 200 million people in the past eight years, the China National Committee on Ageing (CNCA) announced Friday.

Since the program began in 2003, about 3 million of the 8 million over-60s with a junior college degree or higher have volunteered in agriculture and other social and economic sectors, the CNCA said in a statement.

Wu Yushao, vice director of the CNCA, an organization affiliated to the central government, said the program tapped the knowledge of an increasingly large and long-living group of educated elderly people in the world's most populous country.

"With their professionalism and knowledge, elderly intellectuals are an infinite source of manpower for China," Wu said.

The number of those aged 60 or above is expected to rise to more than 200 million by the end of 2015, accounting for 14 percent of the entire population, a 4-percent increase from 2000.

It is estimated that more then 10 percent of China's urban residents aged 60 or above have been educated at colleges or universities, and the ratio is set to rise in future.