Elderly care sector under strain as the country ages

New industry model proposed by leading charity foundation

A Tianjin-based foundation is proposing a new model for elderly care in poor and rural parts of China after managing two nursing homes in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province, since the devastating earthquake there in May 2008.

Officials at the Hetong Charitable Foundation for the Elderly said that elderly residents across the country, particularly the so-called empty-nest elderly - those without sons or daughters to look after them - in rural areas have been forced to turn increasingly to charitable foundations and research institutions for help.

Han Shuzhen, Hetong's secretary-general, said that rather than building nursing homes, it plans to focus on long-term management and development of nursing facilities.

Han insisted that nursing homes should be built by governments with beds and services provided free for "empty-nesters", and paid by those who do have family dependents who can afford the services.

Any surplus can be used to take care of the disabled or those who cannot afford the costs, said Han.

The model will generate what Han calls a "virtuous circle" for the development of services for elderly residents in rural areas.

"Charitable foundations like ours with experience of such professional care can effectively manage nursing homes for the elderly people in this way while the infrastructure building itself will still have to depend on government funding," said Han.

The Chinese society has been aging since 1999, according to Zhen Bingliang, deputy director-general of the social welfare and philanthropy promotion department under the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

The number of elderly people above 60 years old hit 212 million at the end of 2014, accounting for 15.5 percent of the country's total population, and is expected to reach one-third of the total by 2050.

The number of empty-nesters, particularly, is worrying the authorities, said Zhen, and they now account for around half of the elderly population, many of whom are in remote villages and poverty-stricken areas.

According to a report published by the China Philanthropy Research Institute - the Practical Framework and Prospects of China-Britain Cooperation in Elderly Care - there are ongoing efforts being made to attract more care workers from abroad to cope with the rising numbers.

Currently the central and local governments provide only basic elderly care services for people above 80 as well as for disabled or poorer residents.

Seniors with enough money in major cities can find high-quality elderly care services from private elderly care service providers. However, public-welfare support or commercial elderly care services are limited in poor and rural areas and many have to depend on donations or help from charitable organizations.

Most private companies involved in elderly care are focused on developed regions such as coastal cities.

In 2013, there were 177 national and local foundations registered as being involved in elderly care, including the China Ageing Development Foundation.

Bai Hua, its vice-president, said many are providing much of the concrete help needed in rural areas, explaining there are two main kinds of charitable foundations providing for elderly people: those set up by governments or non-government organizations, and those created by private companies willing to take social responsibility for their aging fellow citizens.

Ronghua Group, a Xi'an-based real estate, financial investment and construction firm, has established its own private equity foundation for elderly service, named Ronghua Charitable Foundation, for instance.

Another example is the China Ocean Shipping (Group) Co, the country's largest global shipping conglomerate, which founded the COSCO Charity Foundation. It launched an elderly care pilot project in Anhua county, Hunan province, in 2014, at a cost of 600,000 yuan ($95,900), backed up with another 1.45 million yuan from the government.