Don't leave our lonely elders to die in the dark

Today’s largely “four-two-one” or “four-two-two” family structure, that is four aged grandparents, two young parents and one or two child, makes it very difficult for working couples to take care of the four people who form the base of the family pyramid.

Perhaps better welfare for senior citizens would have prevented most of the tragedies. But then China’s rapidly aging population makes it almost impossible to build enough old age homes to accommodate all the senior citizens.

By the end of last year, China had more than 200 million people aged 60 years or above. Beijing, for example, has about 2 million senior citizens and only about 400,000 beds in elderly care centers. Usually, it takes 10 years for an elderly applicant to get a bed in an old age home, which usually charges about 2,000 yuan a month. Some applicants even die before they can get a bed in a public elderly care center. But the private care centers are either too shabby or too expensive.

The situation is even worse in rural areas. Because of the exodus of working-age people to cities, the proportion of rural residents aged 60 years or above in the total rural population is more than 15.4 percent, 2.14 percentage points higher than the national average. Worse, unlike most of their urban counterparts, elderly people in rural areas do not get pensions and are thus more vulnerable; many have to depend on the basic government pension of about 55 yuan ($9) a month.

Liu Yanwu, a sociologist, says 80 percent of all reported suicides in rural areas are committed by senior citizens. Four categories of senior citizens in rural areas are most prone to committing suicide: those of relatively advanced age, that is, above 70 years; those suffering from diseases; the disabled and widowers.

China enacted the Law on Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly last year, which requires adult children living away from home to visit their aged parents more often. The law thus tries to address the acute social problem of a rapidly aging population by highlighting filial piety.

But taking care of senior citizens is not a matter of filial piety alone. It is more of a social task. The government should allocate more funds to build new and maintain the existing elderly care centers, encourage private capital to enter the eldercare sector and subsidize private centers to make them affordable for ordinary families. It should also help expedite the experiments for some innovative gadgets that can be used to automatically alert family members in times of emergency.

Since the realizing of the above goals will take a long time, local governments at different levels need immediately start providing more community service for senior citizens. An aged person dying unattended is not only a tragedy for the family, but also a cause of shame for the entire society. Hopefully, no more lonely senior citizens will die in the dark.