Treat old people as assets, which they are

Across the world, there is growing alarm over the well-being of old people living in rural areas. Poverty, lack of basic health and social services and migration of young people to cities in search of jobs are endemic in rural areas, affecting millions of senior citizens in China. While in Europe and North America, proportionately smaller number of old people live in rural communities, in China they are the majority. Almost 59 million senior citizens in China, or 67 percent of the total, are rural residents. The voices of these older people must be heard and their needs fulfilled.

Old people in rural China are at high risk of marginalization. Migration patterns of working-age people have greatly weakened the once strong family ties in villages. In some regions, less than one-third of senior citizens have an offspring living nearby. This geographic separation between the generations has reduced opportunities for old people to live with their children in what traditionally has been viewed as a stable home environment. Close-knit three-generation households are becoming history. Increasingly, old people are living alone or with their spouses, which is a threat to the longstanding pattern of family as the main source of support for old people in rural areas.

Social security policies do not cover most underdeveloped areas in China. Government support to senior citizens disproportionately favors those living in urban areas, creating the risk of treating old people on the basis of where they live.