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Longevity town in aging population dilemma
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THE county of Rudong in Jiangsu Province is well-known for having started its birth-control policy 10 years earlier than the rest of China. But that fact apparently is now coming home to roost: The county of 1.04 million people is showing premature signs of aging 20 years earlier than expected.
Its 300,000 people over 60 years old, nearly a third of the county’s total population, are seeking a way to live out their lives in retirement without the economic development that comes from having a bigger working-age population.
When Lin Jun, 30, from Rudong’s Bingcha Town, went to a movie in the nearby city of Rugao, he noticed something. “I found the audience in Rugao was much younger than those in Rudong. The city even has nightlife, but in Rudong it’s all quiet on the street after 9pm,” he says.
Rudong does have a barbecue food market in the downtown area, but few young people can be found at night. Most of the rickshaw pullers are elderly. With trousers rolled up, they earn a meager 5 yuan (US$0.80) for every 5 kilometers. Even in the rice paddies, old people constitute the major labor force.
Sociologist Chen Youhua from Nanjing University told Nanfang Weekly that the birth-control policy was a key reason for the county’s aging situation.
“Birth, death and migration are the main three factors for the change of population and age structure,” says Chen, a Rudong native.
China’s family-planning policy was launched in the 1970s and the one-child policy was adopted in 1980. But Rudong put it into place in the 1960s.
The proportion of people over 60 in China as a whole is 14.9 percent, less than half the figure for Rudong.
Rudong County says it has cut the number of births by 500,000 over the past three decades due to the policy. Moreover, the county earned China’s 21st “Hometown of Longevity” award three years ago.
But the low birth rate and the extended average life expectancy have posed great pressure on this “family planning model county.”
“Education and economic development also contribute to the aging problem,” says Chen, who left Rudong after he was admitted to the university. “Young students leave the hometown for better education.”
Pan Jinhuan, former deputy director of Rudong County People’s Congress Standing Committee, has studied the aging problem for many years after retirement. From his field research, he says that over the past decade nearly 60,000 students have left the county for higher education opportunities, and more than 40,000 have chosen not to return.
“Fewer and fewer young people come back,” says Yu Jianhua, deputy director of the Rudong County Education Bureau, who noted that schools have been merged. In fact, from 2000 to 2010 the number of schools in the county was reduced by half.
“Economic development is the best contraceptive pill,” sociologist Chen says. “People’s mindsets have changed to fewer and healthier births.”
In 1993, Chen suggested to the local family planning authority that the policy should be eased a little, otherwise it might bring negative influences. But he got no reply.
Pan also wrote many letters to the local government, calling for adjustments in the educational structure.
“In addition to keeping general education, Rudong should develop localized vocational schools, getting young people to stay and work in the county, which can both attract investment but also ease the aging pace,” Pan says.
Rudong now realizes the problem. One local government report pointed out, “The lack of work, marriage issues, education and conscription will probably complicate Rudong’s aging problem.”
In turn, when the aging problem reaches an extreme, it produces serious headwinds for a society’s development.
“The population’s sustainable development is absolutely the basis and prerequisite for economic and all other developments,” Chen says.
“To raise a child is very expensive. If it’s all on the shoulders of the couple, it might greatly influence their decision to have a child. So a compensation policy has to be set up to encourage people to have children, of course under the permission of the current conditions and regulations.”
There is also a consensus that the aging issue won’t be solved by technological and economic development alone.
Aging population has become a headache in many developed countries, and Chen says none can successfully solve a series of problems it has created. “China won’t be the exception,” he concludes.
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