Lawmakers consider support system for elderly with one child

Lawmakers are considering establishing a support system for elderly people who have only one child, according to an article written into the latest amendment to the law on senior citizens' rights.

Experts view this proposal as a positive response to the cries from people who have lost their only child and face increasing challenges as they age.

"The nation will establish and perfect the support system for the elderly in family planning households," said the draft amendment to the Law on Protection of Rights and Interests of the Aged.

The draft was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislative body, for discussion on Monday. It has been revised based on the first round of talks by legislators in June.

China's family planning policy has played a positive role in boosting the country's economic and social development, said Shen Chunyao, deputy secretary-general of the NPC Standing Committee and a member of the NPC Law Committee.

However, he urged fellow legislators to pay attention to the changes that the family planning policy has brought.

"Due to factors including diseases, accidents, crimes and natural disasters, some children who are the only child in their families die before their parents," Shen said. "Their deaths have a huge effect on their parents, even grandparents."

That trauma creates financial, psychological and social difficulties for childless parents in their daily lives, he added.

The number of parents who lost their only child is growing in China, he said. An estimated 80,000 youths aged 15 to 30 die annually.

Zhang Xingxian said her daughter's death in 2006 was "an upheaval" in her life.

Zhang, 65, lives with her 70-year-old husband in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province.

"My daughter was a healthy and happy girl until one day she caught a fever and then fell unconscious and left us three days later," Zhang recalled. Her daughter died from acute cerebellitis.

Zhang, overwhelmed by the pain of losing her 26-year-old daughter, was diagnosed with breast cancer one year later.

"My daughter was my spiritual support and when she left, she took everything away from me," she said.

Zhang's husband, 70, has had high blood pressure and heart disease for years.

"As we have lost our only child, nursing homes will not let us in because we don't have a legal guardian to sign for us," she said.

"We are living in fear every day because we don't know who will be the last to die and who can arrange the funeral and affairs after our deaths," she added.

Guo Ping, an assistant research fellow at the China Research Center on Aging, said the new amendment, if passed, will act as a "legal basis" for giving more support to elderly parents whose only child passed away.

"Once articulated in law, government departments can stipulate more detailed policies to help these parents," he said.