Over the next decade, about 300 million people, who are between the ages of 50 and 60, will leave the Chinese workforce. This is the largest age group in the country, almost equal to the population of the United States of America
When you ask 72-year-old farmer Huanchun Cao about his pension, he reacts with a laugh.
He rolls a cigarette at home, raises his eyebrows and tilts his head - as if you asked him an absurd question.
"No, no, we don't have pensions," he says as he looks at his wife, to whom he has been married for more than 45 years.
Cao belongs to the generation that experienced the birth of communist China. Like his country, he grew old before he got rich. Like many rural and migrant workers, he has no choice but to keep working and keep earning, having fallen into a weak social safety net.
A sluggish economy, shrinking government benefits and a one-child policy have created a creeping demographic crisis in President Xi Jinping's China.
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The pension pot is emptying and the country is running out of time to build enough funds to care for the growing number of elderly people.
Over the next decade, about 300 million people, who are between the ages of 50 and 60, will leave the Chinese workforce. This is the largest age group in the country, almost equal to the population of the United States of America.
Who will take care of them? The answer depends on where you go and who you ask.
Cao and his wife live in northeastern Liaoning Province, China's former industrial hub.
Forced to work beyond retirement age
Vast tracts of farmland and mining hills surround the main city of Shenyang. Plumes of smoke from factories blanket the sky, alongside some of the country's best-preserved world heritage sites from the Qing Dynasty.
Nearly a quarter of the population in this country is 65 or older. Increasing numbers of people of working age are leaving the centers of heavy industry in search of better jobs in the big cities.
Cao's children are also gone, but are close enough to visit their parents often.
"I think I can continue this work for another four or five years," Cao says, after he and his wife return home from collecting wood. Inside their home, flames crackle beneath a heated platform - called a "kang" - which is their main source of heat.
The couple earns about 20 yuan (about 2,500 euros) a year. But the price of the corn they raise is going down and they have to be careful not to get sick as they can't afford the costs.
"In five years, if I'm still physically strong, I can probably walk on my own. But if I am weak and weak, then I can remain lying in bed. That's it. Finish. I suppose I will be a burden to my children. They will have to take care of me,” Cao said.
This is not the future that 55-year-old Guohui Tang wants. Her husband had an accident at a construction site and her daughter's college education has drained her savings.
Therefore, she has seen an opportunity in elderly care to finance her old age. She has opened a small nursing home about an hour away from Shenyang.
Pigs and geese cackle at the back of the bungalow surrounded by farmland. Tangu grows crops to feed its six residents. Animals aren't pets – they're dinner, too.
Tangu points to a group of four people playing cards as the sun shines through the object.
"That 85-year-old man has no pension, he depends entirely on his son and daughter. The boy pays one month, the girl the other, but they also need to live."
She is worried that she will have to depend on her only daughter.
For generations, China has relied on the principle that parents, grandparents and the elderly should be treated with honor and respect, to cover the shortage of elderly care centers. It used to be the duty of the son or daughter to take care of the elderly parents.
But now there are fewer sons and daughters to support aging parents – one reason is the strict one-child rule that prevented couples from having two or more children from the 1980s to 2015.
As the economy grows rapidly, young people have also moved away from their parents, leaving large numbers of older people to fend for themselves or depend on government handouts.
But the pension fund could run out of money by 2035, according to the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences. This was the estimate for 2019, before the shutdown due to the pandemic, which has hit China's economy hard.
The plan for raising the retirement age
China may have to raise the retirement age, which has been on the cards for years. It has the lowest retirement age in the world – 60 for men, 55 for women in managerial (office) jobs and 50 for working-class women.
But economists say this is a slow process if China wants to avoid what some fear could turn into a humanitarian crisis in 25 years.
In the meantime, many more seniors are dipping into their pensions.
"Welcome to my home," said 78-year-old Feng, who only wanted to use her last name.
It's hard to follow her steps as she rushes down the hall to tell her husband that the guests are on their way to their room at Sunshine Nursing Home. The morning exercise class, where she has been laughing and gossiping with her friend, has just ended.
Need for care homes
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The house was built to house more than 1,300 residents. About 20 young people come to live here voluntarily and for free, in exchange for taking care of some elderly people. Private companies partially finance the house, taking the pressure off the local government.
This is the experiment as leaders seek solutions for an aging China. In Hangzhou, in southern China, they can afford such experiments.
This is a different world from Liaoning, where tech companies such as Alibaba and Ant are springing up, magnets for young and ambitious entrepreneurs.
The Feng couple has been living here for eight years. The nursing home looks sociable and there are plenty of things to do – from the gym and table tennis to singing and drama.
"It is very important to be able to spend the last part of your life in a good place," says Fengu. She and her husband have been married for over 50 years. It was love at first sight, they say.
When their grandson graduated from high school, they decided their job was done.
"There are some people of the same age who think like us," says Fengu. "It seems we pay attention to enjoying life. Those who disagree think that it is not necessary to pay a large amount of money to live here, since they have their own house."
But she says she is more open-minded: "I thought about it for a long time. I gave the house to my son. What we need are pension cards".
The couple's room in the care home costs about 2,000 yuan (about 250 euros) a month. As former employees of state-owned companies, they both have enough pension money to pay their expenses.
Their pension is much higher than the average in China, about 170 yuan (about 20 euros) a month in 2020, according to the UN's International Labor Organization.
But even with clients with good pensions, the "Sunshine" care home is operating at a loss. The director says care homes are expensive to start and take time to turn a profit.
Beijing is pressuring private firms to build day care centers, wards and other care infrastructure to fill the gaps left by indebted local governments. But will they continue to invest if there are no profits?
Other East Asian countries such as Japan are also seeking funding to care for large numbers of elderly people. But Japan was already rich when it had one of the oldest populations in the world.
However, China is aging fast. Thus, many older people are forced to find solutions on their own – at an age when they should be planning for retirement.
Shuishui, 55, has found a new career in the so-called "silver hair economy" - trying to tap into the purchasing power of middle-class seniors.
“I think what we can do is try to influence the people around us to be more positive and keep learning. Everyone can have income at different levels, but whatever situation you are in, trying to be positive is the best."
Shuishui knows that he is part of the privileged part in China. But she is determined to think for the best. A former businesswoman, she is now a newly trained model.
On the sunny banks of the Grand Canal in Hangzhou she and three other women, all 55, are fixing their make-up and hair.
Each has chosen their own traditional red and gold Chinese attire – floor-length silk skirts and short fur jackets to keep them warm from the spring chill. These glamorous grannies are modeling for social media.
They walk precariously in high heels over the historic cobbled Gongchen Bridge as they try to smile and laugh for the camera as a team of social media specialists give them directions.
This is the image of aging gracefully that Shuishui wants the world to see, and that he feels is doing something to boost the sagging economy.
But this picture belies the reality of China's millions of elderly people.
In Liaoning, wood smoke billows from chimneys, signaling lunch time. Cao is fixing the fire in his kitchen to heat the water to cook the rice.
"When I reach the age of 80, I hope my children will come back to live with me," he says as he finds a pot. "I will not join them in the city. Their apartment has no elevator and you have to climb five floors. This is harder than riding a hill."
For Cao this is the reality. He has to keep working until he can't anymore.
"Simple people like us live like this," he says, pointing to the fields outside, which are still covered in frost.
Spring will bring back the planting season – and thus more work for him and his wife.
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"If you compare this with life in the city, normally farmers have a more difficult life. How can you make a living if you can't handle the hardship?"
Prepared by: Latra Gashi
