1:6. What does this ratio mean to you, personally?

Perhaps nothing in particular. Maybe the faculty-student ratio at a liberal arts college as featured in our fancy brochures? For many Chinese youth, this ratio represents the amount of individuals they will support in retirement (two parents and four grandparents.)

Under the One Child Policy, the single child of a typical Chinese family would need to take care of four grandparents and two parents. Although the Policy, originally aimed to reduce the country’s rapid population growth, is currently undergoing reform through the loosening of its restrictions, the 37-year-old law has already caused demographic concerns and made the country’s aging population a more serious issue.

The relaxation of the One Child Policy is one solution to the issue. On an individual basis, many young Chinese couples have decided to let the retiring communities, or “Eldergardens,” take care of the elderly members of their families, generating promising business opportunities for many corporations. According to an article entitled “Eldergardens soothe China’s aging pain,” in China Daily, Chinese traditional culture promotes caring for the elderly by helping them rest, so their retirement communities encourage “self-care.” Examples of “self-care” are demonstrated in an array of marketable services, including art exhibition and daily screenings of “old films” to satiate the taste of this segment of the population.

The “retiring homes” in China tend to have very old facilities. This contrast in observations between the richer eldergardens and the retirement homes for the poorer individuals raises an important question of whether lucrative business owners are seeking profit-maximising opportunities through the fact that the young may not support the elderly at home due to issues like time and budget constraints. This question brings us to the interconnectedness between the political economy and the private sector businesses and the civil society at large.

Political scientists say that when one gets old, he or she gets poor. The issue for countries would be how to get rich first before getting old first. The issue discussed could also be considered in terms of the status of the economy. 

Next, we could broaden our perspective by briefly looking at the aging populations in two of mainland China’s neighbours, Hong Kong and Japan.

Hong Kong, as one of the ‘four Asian dragons’ alongside South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, is not affected by the One Child Policy. Governed under the “One Country, Two Systems” principle, the Special Administrative Region also sees the aging population as an issue. A fact sheet published by the Hong Kong government outlines the major components in addressing the needs of the elderly’s welfare. Such approaches include social security, the Old Age Allowance scheme, and community services to care for the elderly. Perhaps this Asian dragon could provide an example of a country that gets rich before it gets old, although such methods have not been sufficient, still, to address the needs of the SAR’s citizens.

Japan, China’s neighboring country that has a love-hate relationship with China, has the oldest population in Asia. Japan provides another example of a country which could get rich first before getting old. Yet the very richness of its economy in the past decades resulted in overall trend for longevity among the elderly. Towns and villages outside big cities in Japan tend to feature inter-generational households, where 3 to 4 generations would live under the same roof. Parents are usually well taken care of in those villages and towns. In cities, by contrast, households are mainly one-generation. The decline of liberal democratic parties and the growing strength of left leaning parties may also have contributed to the issue in Japan. Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s leadership, the Japanese government has been striving to encourage marriage and other means of alleviating the negative effects of this problem, although in a longer time frame.

As the Japanese economy slows down, the younger people in the labour markets are increasing less well off than the older workers who retain the benefits of relative wealth from a previous, more economically benign environment. Meanwhile, the country has also been seeing a shortfall in its pension schemes. As the young have to bear more burdens in order to care for the elderly, Japan’s richness before getting old actually leads to its own sets of problems as well, although very different from those faced by China.