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Proposal to export city's seniors to other provinces draws flak
By Ni Tao |
March 8, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
NO saying sums up Chinese affinity to homeland better than the adage: fallen leaves return to their roots. All good Chinese, goes this adage, are supposed to retreat to their "roots," or birthplace, to age, just as falling leaves swirl and flutter back to the soil and enrich it.
But this centuries-old norm is increasingly challenged by reality and now scholarly opinion. Peng Xizhe, professor of sociology and public policy at Fudan University, recently drew flak for proposing that Shanghai's pensioners migrate to adjacent provinces to live their post-retirement life.
In an interview with Jiefang Daily, published on February 21, Peng said that to ease population pressure, Shanghai might encourage its senior citizens to leave for out-of-town nursing facilities.
Once separate health care funds are integrated across provinces, and care centers provide transport for visiting children, his proposal is fine, argued Peng. Besides, about an estimated 400,000 care givers will pick up and move out with the exodus, further easing population pressure, he said.
Critics dismiss his proposal as a long shot precisely because the key precondition of pooling health care funds is hard to realize, given the rigid hukou (household registration) system.
Under this system, only residents with valid hukou can enjoy local health care services, while non-hukou-holders are denied access. Thus, to enable Shanghai pensioners to retire outside of Shanghai, the first priority is to have their Shanghai health care entitlements recognized by the destination localities.
This is already possible on a small scale. Some parts of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have been on the receiving end of a steady trickle of elderly Shanghainese.
In spite of its partial feasibility, Peng's idea stirred controversy among some locals who say it would drive out natives and turn Shanghai over to migrants. This is a nativistic backlash, for sure, but there is some substance to it.
Aging alone away from home
Besides the thorny prerequisite of integrated health care funds, the pull of tradition is formidable.
Chinese in general stick to the notion that elderly parents ought to be provided for close to home. And their attachment to ancestral land cannot be easily forsaken.
Aging alone away from home is tantamount to exile, said some netizens who fiercely object to Peng's suggestion.
Although advocates of senior care migration readily cite benefits such as fresh air, lower expenses and a laid-back life in second-tier cities like Suzhou in Jiangsu and Huzhou in Zhejiang, their distance from Shanghai is off-putting.
What's more, these cities have their own share of aging elderly residents to worry about. Outsourcing one's demographic woes isn't sustainable.
Nor is it sustainable to build more nursing homes to meet demand. Shanghai now has more than 3 million people above 60 years of age, but beds at local care centers total 100,000, meaning there is only one bed for 30 seniors.
Ma Yili, head of Shanghai's Civil Affairs Bureau, a last year that Shanghai will add 25,000 beds by 2015, but still the ratio of beds to people is too low.
While the gap led scholars like Peng to believe that Shanghai can address its aging problem only by exporting it to its neighbors, Ma by contrast announced the short-term policy goal of the local civil affairs authority: by 2015, 90 percent of Shanghai's retirees will ideally live at home, while 7 percent in community care centers, and the remaining 3 percent will be cared for in government-run nursing homes.
While a few elderly people get to inhale fresh air and embrace nature in greener, pastoral retreats, there's a price to pay. They leave behind their cherished past, their children and friends, and sometimes have to sell property to fund life in a strange city.
It's a choice only a brave, highly independent few will entertain.
Shanghai is the oldest Chinese city in demographic terms, with a 20 percent "aged" population. Any initiative to slow its graying speed will be a template for the whole nation. The migration model as advised by Peng is a move worth mooting and debating, but conditions are not ripe for its massive adoption.
In-house care a viable option
Years ago some law experts called for mandating home visits for children to honor their filial piety commitments.
The suggestion was laughed off as unrealistic, for migrants toiling in cities would be the first to be punished for forced separation with family.
But in retrospect, this suggestion isn't that ridiculous.
In a city as populous and rapidly graying as Shanghai, in-house care of seniors by their offspring is a viable option, ethically sound, fiscally wise, and causes little burden to social security systems of our neighboring provinces.
The question is whether this fine city of dense forests of steel and concrete can dedicate valuable land to senior-care facilities, instead of commercial development.
Will its environment, air, traffic, food safety, noise pollution, which according to media reports is getting worse by the day, be acceptable for seniors in a few years? Perhaps not. Then Peng's maligned proposal just forecasts a sad future of no country for old men.
But this centuries-old norm is increasingly challenged by reality and now scholarly opinion. Peng Xizhe, professor of sociology and public policy at Fudan University, recently drew flak for proposing that Shanghai's pensioners migrate to adjacent provinces to live their post-retirement life.
In an interview with Jiefang Daily, published on February 21, Peng said that to ease population pressure, Shanghai might encourage its senior citizens to leave for out-of-town nursing facilities.
Once separate health care funds are integrated across provinces, and care centers provide transport for visiting children, his proposal is fine, argued Peng. Besides, about an estimated 400,000 care givers will pick up and move out with the exodus, further easing population pressure, he said.
Critics dismiss his proposal as a long shot precisely because the key precondition of pooling health care funds is hard to realize, given the rigid hukou (household registration) system.
Under this system, only residents with valid hukou can enjoy local health care services, while non-hukou-holders are denied access. Thus, to enable Shanghai pensioners to retire outside of Shanghai, the first priority is to have their Shanghai health care entitlements recognized by the destination localities.
This is already possible on a small scale. Some parts of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have been on the receiving end of a steady trickle of elderly Shanghainese.
In spite of its partial feasibility, Peng's idea stirred controversy among some locals who say it would drive out natives and turn Shanghai over to migrants. This is a nativistic backlash, for sure, but there is some substance to it.
Aging alone away from home
Besides the thorny prerequisite of integrated health care funds, the pull of tradition is formidable.
Chinese in general stick to the notion that elderly parents ought to be provided for close to home. And their attachment to ancestral land cannot be easily forsaken.
Aging alone away from home is tantamount to exile, said some netizens who fiercely object to Peng's suggestion.
Although advocates of senior care migration readily cite benefits such as fresh air, lower expenses and a laid-back life in second-tier cities like Suzhou in Jiangsu and Huzhou in Zhejiang, their distance from Shanghai is off-putting.
What's more, these cities have their own share of aging elderly residents to worry about. Outsourcing one's demographic woes isn't sustainable.
Nor is it sustainable to build more nursing homes to meet demand. Shanghai now has more than 3 million people above 60 years of age, but beds at local care centers total 100,000, meaning there is only one bed for 30 seniors.
Ma Yili, head of Shanghai's Civil Affairs Bureau, a last year that Shanghai will add 25,000 beds by 2015, but still the ratio of beds to people is too low.
While the gap led scholars like Peng to believe that Shanghai can address its aging problem only by exporting it to its neighbors, Ma by contrast announced the short-term policy goal of the local civil affairs authority: by 2015, 90 percent of Shanghai's retirees will ideally live at home, while 7 percent in community care centers, and the remaining 3 percent will be cared for in government-run nursing homes.
While a few elderly people get to inhale fresh air and embrace nature in greener, pastoral retreats, there's a price to pay. They leave behind their cherished past, their children and friends, and sometimes have to sell property to fund life in a strange city.
It's a choice only a brave, highly independent few will entertain.
Shanghai is the oldest Chinese city in demographic terms, with a 20 percent "aged" population. Any initiative to slow its graying speed will be a template for the whole nation. The migration model as advised by Peng is a move worth mooting and debating, but conditions are not ripe for its massive adoption.
In-house care a viable option
Years ago some law experts called for mandating home visits for children to honor their filial piety commitments.
The suggestion was laughed off as unrealistic, for migrants toiling in cities would be the first to be punished for forced separation with family.
But in retrospect, this suggestion isn't that ridiculous.
In a city as populous and rapidly graying as Shanghai, in-house care of seniors by their offspring is a viable option, ethically sound, fiscally wise, and causes little burden to social security systems of our neighboring provinces.
The question is whether this fine city of dense forests of steel and concrete can dedicate valuable land to senior-care facilities, instead of commercial development.
Will its environment, air, traffic, food safety, noise pollution, which according to media reports is getting worse by the day, be acceptable for seniors in a few years? Perhaps not. Then Peng's maligned proposal just forecasts a sad future of no country for old men.
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