China’s aged population to more than double by 2053

Senior citizens have free noodles for longevity to celebrate the Double Ninth Festival at the Pilu Temple in Nanjing/XINHUA

“The aging problem came late to China and the country is still struggling to create mature policies addressing the issue,” Zhu Yong, vice director of the committee, said Monday at a seminar on aging held by the committee, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and HelpAge International.

China had about 185 million people above the age of 60, or 13.7 percent of the population, as of the end of last year.

The figure is expected to surge to 221 million in 2015, including 51 million “empty nesters,” or elderly people whose children no longer live with them.

Zhu urged authorities to draw experience from developed countries in order to reduce uncertainties and risks.

At the seminar, experts recommended improving economic and health support, building more facilities for urban and rural senior residents, encouraging them to participate in social activities and establishing a medical treatment network for the aging population.

Figures from UNFPA show that out of the global population, one out of every nine people is at or above the age of 60. The ratio is expected to climb to one in five by 2050.

About The Author

XINHUA

Xinhua News Agency, founded on November 7, 1931, is China’s national news agency as well as a global news and information network. Xinhua has set up a global news and information gathering network, with headquarters in Beijing, 33 domestic bureaus in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities plus the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as 140 bureaus in the rest of the world. Xinhua is yet to set up a bureau in Taiwan, where it has posted resident correspondents. Xinhua provides its worldwide subscribers with news and financial information products in the forms of text, photo, graphics, audio, video, and mobile phone text messages 24 hours a day in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.

See author's posts