China frets at pensions for aging population
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-25 10:31

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's rapidly growing elderly population could surge as high as 430 million by 2051, when almost one in three citizens will be 60 or over, posing a grave challenge for already strained state social welfare and pension systems, Xinhua news agency said on Friday.

The aging population was now growing by 3 million a year from the current 143 million, it said.

"China is facing surging demand from the elderly population in terms of social welfare and medical services," Li Bengong, an official with the China National Committee on Aging, was quoted as saying.

"Welfare services can not match the rise in demand."

People retiring in China today do not enjoy the cradle-to-grave welfare provided to previous generations which has been replaced with a mash-mash of government and corporate pension plans experts say are riddled with problems.

Some 85 million elderly people in rural areas, or 65 percent of China's total aging population, "do not benefit from the country's social welfare system, pensions and adequate medical care," Xinhua said.

China's social welfare expenditures hit 350.2 billion yuan ($43.5 billion) in 2004, up 65.5 percent from 2000, it said.

Last March, Chinese media reported the pension system was facing a shortfall of more than $300 billion.

The Chinese government are expected to move toward improving social services after years of focusing on speeding up economic growth in the 11th Five Year Plan, the new roadmap for the world's top-five economy.

Some blame China's controversial one-child policy for the aging of its people, criticism the committee said was unfounded, though it acknowledged lower birth rates were a key reason, along with longer life expectancy.

With China's population still expected to rise by about 10 million people a year, experts say, the government has no plans to ease the one-child policy.