The nation's aging future in a nutshell(2)

Zhang Binglin, 70, prunes flowers at his home in Rudong, Jiangsu province on Sep 30, 2014. [Photo/Xinhua]

There's little doubt the low birth rate has played a role in Rudong's aging process because the family planning policy prevented about 500,000 births in the past three decades, according to the county's estimates.

As the number of births fell, and living standards rose, the county's senior citizens began to live longer, leading to Rudong being granted the title "Longevity Town" by the Gerontological Society of China in 2011.

By the end of 2013, the county was home to 147 people aged 100 and older, 39 men and 108 women. The oldest resident is a 106-year-old who inherited the title after the death of a 110-year-old in 2013.

The situation has also been exacerbated by urbanization, which has seen huge numbers of people leaving underdeveloped areas across the country for a better life in the cities. The process is as rampant in Rudong as any other rural backwater in China, and the county's high standard of education makes it easier for locals because they have little difficulty finding work when they leave.

Chen said at least 70 percent of his students settled down outside the county after they graduated from university, and many even took family members with them. One of Chen's best students began his working life at a securities brokerage in Beijing, and when he was promoted to one of the top positions in the company, he took his older sister to the capital and settled her there.

Shi Junping, 47, a driver, said she doesn't want her son to return when he graduates from Suzhou University in 2016. "We just feel that those who stay are losers," she said, adding that she could name a dozen relatives and colleagues whose only child settled down outside the county after finishing higher education. Only one relative's child returned, after studying at Tsinghua University for four years, something Shi described as "a big surprise to us all".

These factors have imposed huge pressures on Rudong, whose population has been declining steadily since 1997, when the number of births began outstripping deaths. By 2010, the population stood at 996,000, down from 1.11 million in 1990, according to the sixth national census conducted in 2010. Now, residents aged 65 and older account for more than 20 percent of the population, while people aged 60 and older account for 28 percent.

The UN defines a society as "aging" when the proportion of people older than 60 is more than 10 percent of the population, or the number of people older than 65 exceeds 7 percent. Nationally, 8.9 percent of China's population of 1.3 billion is aged 65 and older.

While many observers are convinced that the aging population will pose problems for China in the near future, some believe Rudong's head start means it is a microcosm of the future and provides an opportunity for observation and experiment.

Gao Jian, a county civil affairs' official, said little can be done to reverse the aging trend and its possible influence, except to build more facilities for the large number of elderly people in need of care.

Meanwhile, the effect of the nationwide relaxation of the family planning policy, which was announced earlier this year, won't be seen in the county for some time. Under the amended policy, if one member of a couple is an only child, they will be allowed to have two children, but a survey conducted by the local family planning commission in 2013 showed that only 11.6 percent of the 28,000 eligible couples in Rudong were willing to have a second child.

Chen said that while the overall atmosphere is downbeat, there are few reasons for optimism. "The number of high schools won't be slashed any further," he said, pointing to the fact that the number of 10th-graders in local high schools seems to have stabilized at around 5,000 in recent years.

"With more couples set to have a second child, the number of students might even rise," he said.