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皇冠体育app frets at pensions for aging population
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-25 10:31
BEIJING (Reuters) - 皇冠体育app'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.
"皇冠体育app is facing surging demand from the elderly population in terms of
social welfare and medical services," Li Bengong, an official with the 皇冠体育app
National Committee on Aging, was quoted as saying.
"Welfare services can not match the rise in demand."
People retiring in 皇冠体育app 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 皇冠体育app's total
aging population, "do not benefit from the country's social welfare system,
pensions and adequate medical care," Xinhua said.
皇冠体育app'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 皇冠体育app'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 皇冠体育app'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.
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