OPINION> Commentary
How best to prepare for the twilight years of life
By Zhu Yuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-13 08:23

I was really shocked when one of my colleagues, during our lunchtime chat, talked about finding a proper home for senior residents for his parents. As we sat perplexed, he explained that it was neither his decision nor his suggestion but his mother's. He further elaborated that even if he had such an idea, he would never have had the guts to put it to his parents.

Not long ago, it would be considered a violation of traditional filial piety to sidestep one's duty of taking care of one's parents. But it is one thing to deliberately shirk one's responsibility, and it is another when a person does want to take care of his or her parents but just cannot spare enough time and energy to do so.

In the coming decades, many Chinese in their 30s or older will face a similar problem since most of them have only one child under the family planning policy. The policy, effective since the late 1970s, has contributed a great deal to the economic prosperity and well-being of Chinese people today. This is also a great contribution to the whole world.

While enjoying the welfare and social benefits, a considerable part of which would have been claimed by 300 million more people had it not been for the family planning policy, what we have to face is the change of the family structure.

The most direct impact from the much smaller size of a family is that aged people cannot expect to be taken care of by their sons or daughters or grandsons or granddaughters as their counterparts did several decades ago.

Several generations living under the same roof used to be the traditional mode of Chinese family life. In this mode, aged people got both respect from all the juniors in the family and due care from them. In such a big family, it would be possible for the aged ones to secure care from at least one of their sons or daughters or grandsons and granddaughters, or even from them all.

Of traditional tales for children, many are about how well people performed their filial duty to their parents. One of the traditional tales of 24 model dutiful children describes how the son melted a hole in a frozen river with the warmth of his own body to catch fish for his father who wanted very much to eat fish. There are also some about how some children are punished by the heavens in the form of thunderbolt strikes for their maltreatment of their aged parents.

Today, filial piety is still hailed as a virtue. Yet, the problem is that many who do want to take care of their aged parents from the bottom of their hearts can hardly spare enough time and energy to do so.

With the one-child family structure, a young couple of my daughter's generation will have to take care of four aged people - their own parents and their parents-in-law.

Kongchao jiating (empty-nest family) is a term coined in recent years to describe the lonely old couples whose only sons or daughters have gone to study and work in other places. There are many such families across the country, especially in cities.

Obviously, there is no way for these only children of their parents to perform their filial duties to their parents. And they do not even afford the time to come to their parents when the latter are sick or do not feel well, however strong their intention is to take care of their parents.

The number of senior citizens above the age of 60 stood at 153 million by the end of 2007, accounting for 11 percent of the total population of 1.3 billion. And the figure is expected to rise to 250 million in 2020 and 400 million in 2050, accounting for 30 percent of the total population.

It is obviously not realistic for senior people to depend on their children for the care they need in their winter years.

When some friends of mine gather together, we jokingly talk about going together to a home for the aged in the future when we will not be able to take care of ourselves. We will not feel lonely if we are able to stay together in our last days.

When I am deep in thought alone, I realize that this is not a joke and would become a reality in 20 years for more than 200 million people in their 60s or 70s.

Yes, It will be a great pressure to take care of such a large number of aged people. But it is the price the country will have to pay for its failure to adopt the family planning policy more than two decades earlier in the early 1950s when it was proposed by a professor from Peking University. This professor proposed that family planning be adopted to control the size of the population although he did not mention how big a family should be.

Preparedness averts peril. China needs to get itself well prepared for the rapid expansion of gray population, and meeting their increased demand for healthcare and other special care will set a good example for other populous nations.

I often tell people of my age (in their early 50s) that we must spend enough time on reasonable amounts of exercise to keep ourselves fit. This is not only in our own interest, but also in the interest of the State by reducing as much burden as possible on healthcare resources.

If the entire society, including both the State and people in their 40s or 50s, is well prepared for the coming of an era when people above the age of 60 will make up more than 20 percent of the total population, the would-be aged people will have enough reason to expect a golden time for their remaining years and the State should have enough confidence to stave off problems an aged society is expected to pose.

(China Daily 08/13/2008 page10)