(Photo/eastday.com)

Shanghai had about 4.58 million people aged over 60 by the end of 2016. This accounted for 31.6 per cent of the city’s population, official statistics say.

The information was disclosed in a newly released book compiled under the leadership of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau, detailing how Shanghai tackled the issue of elderly care in the past 40 years.

Shanghai in 1979 had 50 nursing homes for aged people in both urban and rural areas, the book says. By the end of 2015, the city had 126,000 beds for the elderly, while an estimated 160,000 beds will be needed by 2020.

The rising costs of land, commodities, and labor have made senior care even more challenging in Shanghai.

In 2008, a nursing home with 66 beds was rented out for RMB 180,000 ($26,700) per year. But in 2016, the price surged to RMB 1.8 million, said the owner of a nursing house in Xuhui District, southeast of the urban center.

Meanwhile, compared with soaring rents, elderly people’s willingness and ability to pay have not changed much. A survey carried out amongst Shanghai’s elderly this year on how much they are willing to pay per month for care indicated that 77.7 per cent wished the price remained below RMB 3,000 and only 2.7 per cent were willing to pay RMB 5,000 and above.

Shanghai in 2000 became the first city on the Chinese mainland to propose home-based care for the elderly. The city the same year launched pilot centers with only 305 employees.

Under the campaign, elderly people holding special certificates can ask helpers to clean their homes, cut their hair for free, as well as enjoy other preferential services.

By the end of 2016, Shanghai had 213 home-based elderly care centers with nearly 26,000 employees serving 313,000 people.