Graying but gritty, China's elderly seek meaningful life

HEFEI, June 26 (Xinhua) -- It was past midnight when Feng Longfeng received a call. She got up and hurried to a bereaved family in the neighborhood.

At 62, Feng is the youngest among a team of 20 gray-haired volunteers who provide end-of-life care to elderly people and comfort bereaved families in a community in Tongling, east China's Anhui Province.

Most of the volunteers, aged 62 to 80, had faced deaths and separations themselves before they found meaning again in their lives.

Feng's world fell apart when she was widowed in 2016. "For many months, I just wanted to be left alone and refused to go out," she told Xinhua in an interview.

The volunteers in the neighborhood repeatedly tried to reach out to her. "They dropped in to chat with me and invited me to parks, markets, and the community nursing home. It was just difficult to say 'no' every single time," she recalled.

Feng soon became a volunteer herself and started to serve in the nursing home. She felt her life was worth living again when the ailing, lonesome elderly thanked her.

She spent time chatting with them and keeping them company, especially when they felt weak and afraid of imminent death. She soon reached out to bereaved families, too. "I call on them and grieve with them until they are in better form," she said.

"A better form means they cry less, talk more and even smile occasionally. More importantly, they would show me to the door when I'm about to leave."

The Chinese used to think it was a "rare phenomenon" to live until their 70s, but as the average life expectancy keeps increasing in recent decades, many elderly people seek to live healthily and continue contributing to society at an advanced age.

Average life expectancy reached 78.2 years in China in 2021, according to statistics released by the National Health Commission.

"As the Chinese live longer and are healthier at old age, the gray-haired population may still have a role to play in society," said Lu Ming, a specialist from Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

He said about half of the people aged 60 and above are between 60 and 69, many of whom have the knowledge and expertise and are healthy enough to contribute to society.

"NO" TO AGEISM

At 78, Ge Hanjun works as a cleaner in his home village, earning more than 10,000 yuan (1,393 U.S. dollars) a year from the cleaning job and his pension program.

"That's enough for my wife and me, and as we grow grain and vegetables around our house, we spend very little on food," said Ge, a native of Aimin village in Shizong township of Nantong, east China's Jiangsu Province.

He also keeps a fishpond just for fun. "Fishing is my son's favorite pastime. We also give fish as gifts to our friends and neighbors." His two grown-up children work in other cities and come home only three or four times a year.

Shizong township is quiet and unfrequented most of the year, as nearly 46 percent of the residents are aged 60 and older, whereas the younger people are mostly away from home, working or studying for a degree.

"Its streets are congested only during two holiday periods: the Chinese Lunar New Year and the Qingming Festival in early April when the villagers come home to pay tribute to their ancestors," said Gu Xiaohu, chief of the township government.

In Ge's Aimin village, almost half of all the 2,570 registered residents are aged over 60, said village official Zhang Xiaoyan.

Like Ge, most of them still choose to make a living on their own. Those aged 60 to 69, considered "young," still prefer working away from home, taking up jobs as security guards or cleaners, or babysitting for their grandkids, said Zhang.

Villagers aged 70 to 79 have mostly returned home, but are still working: growing greenhouse fruits and vegetables, trimming trees, cleaning up riverbeds, or doing handiwork, Zhang said.

The village is comparatively rich, Zhang said. "Most villagers work as construction workers until they are 60 years old and have saved enough money for a relaxing retirement life."

But the elderly refuse to give in to ageism, and by remaining wage earners, they feel they live with dignity, said Zhang.

"I don't want to sit there doing nothing," said Ge. "I'm still in good form to earn money for myself and for my children and grandchildren."

Chinese parents traditionally rely on their children for care and support in old age. Ge and his wife expect the same but hope to be independent for as long as they can, so as to ease the burden on their son and daughter.

Jiangsu Province, one of the richest on China's eastern coast, is rapidly aging. The latest national census showed about 17 percent of its 85 million permanent residents were aged 65 and over, 2.84 percentage points higher than the national average.

The World Health Organization defines a society as "aging" when its proportion of people aged 65 and above exceeds 7 percent, as "aged" if the rate surpasses 14 percent, and as "super-aged" if over 21 percent.

While 12 of all the 13 cities in Jiangsu Province are "aged," three are "super-aged": Nantong, Taizhou, and Yangzhou.

GRAYING SOCIETY

Chinese people aged 60 or above have reached 280.04 million, including 209.78 million people aged 65 or above, or 14.9 percent of the total population, according to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics in February.

In its efforts to build an elderly-friendly society, China is working to provide better elderly care by improving medical services, creating more nursing homes, and bringing nursing services to the doorstep.

Last month, the central government released a set of guidelines to facilitate the building of the basic elderly care system, making clear that the focus through 2025 is on tackling difficulties that families or individuals could hardly overcome on their own, involving older people incapable of performing self-care, those with disabilities, and those having no one to take care of them.

The guideline document includes a list that breaks down basic elderly care into 16 service items and classifies them into categories of material assistance, nursing services, and caregiving services.

By 2025, China is expected to have a relatively sound institutional system in place, bringing its entire elderly population under coverage, according to the document.

A positive side of the aging society is that it is the result of citizens' longer life expectancy and better health, yet it can pose severe challenges to social and economic development when coupled with a declining fertility rate, said Huang Wenzheng, a Beijing-based demography expert and senior researcher from the Center for China and Globalization.

Huang suggests China subsidize families with 1,000 yuan per month for each child under 16, to ease their financial burden and encourage young couples to have more children. "The total amount of subsidies will make up roughly one-fifteenth of China's annual fixed-asset investment, or 3.2 percent of its GDP," he said.

China's demography will see a change for the better if the annual newborn population rebounds to 20 million, he added.

Last year, China's GDP reached a record high of 121 trillion yuan, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. But the country's newborn population totaled only 9.56 million.

At a key meeting held in May, the country's top leadership pointed out that China is experiencing a trend of birthrate decline, population aging, and differentiation in regional population growth.

The meeting called for efforts to improve China's strategy for population development in the new era, understand, adapt to, and guide the new normal of population development, improve the overall quality of the population, and maintain an appropriate birthrate and population size.