Population Aging and Health: China in Focus

This is a pretty interesting article, and I'd particularly like to hear winter and WEB's input on this.

The life expectancy in China has grown significantly in the last 15 years, there is an emerging middle class spending lots of money, but the aging population is growing faster than the younger population, leaving the question as to how are these people going to be cared for, and with the rise of chronic diseases in China, what effect the apparent rise in health care costs is going to have on the Chinese economy.

I'm not terribly educated on China's economic history and other demographics, which is why I'm looking for any input, though I'd like to hear some input from people who live there or do a lot of reading on the country. This is pretty intriguing to me.

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"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

Here's the major issue:


So, even with China's blazing economic growth, it won't be enough to keep up with health care costs. China RIGHT NOW is a very brutal place on the working man. I've seen some video documentaries on workers who were mutilated while working in factories. People who couldn't walk or lost arms. They were basically just left out there to be taken care of by someone. Not by the state, but by someone. Look at the fate of China's coal miners. I believe last year, hundreds if not thousands of coal miners died in circumstances that could have easily been avoided, if the coal mines had decided to spend some money on safety equipment that is standard in the West.

The point of my story, quite simply, is that China can be a brutal country. I'm not saying brutal, as in like a preference for sheer cruelty, but people's lives will be sacrificed for the common good. It will be no different for the elderly. If they cannot be cared for, then they will simply be let go to have whatever fate.

The real question is not how will Chinese society get by, but how much will that the state invest in dealing with the elderly? It could have major economic implications if the Chinese state actually started moving towards making businesses do more to provide healthcare, or taxing people more to provide healthcare.

I think China will get by. To look at it a different way, China has gone without healthcare for 4,000 years, they will be able to get by without it for another 50 years. Healthcare will improve, China's economy will continue to grow. I think China will find some middle ground, between diverting the entirety of their national savings to health care and putting their parents out in the cold.

Monterey County Herald | 01/30/2007 | China's fast-aging population

This article suggests that the problem is a side-effect of the population control policies and a side effect of economic success. It also makes a very interesting point that in developing countries, feeding people is the biggest challenge - in developed, it's caring for elderly. China is in the unique situation of having to do both.

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"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
Isaac Asimov

Remember the one child poklicy... you've got a generation not much more than half the size of the previous one. I don't think China will manage well: this is the reason China will NOT be the next superpower.

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... I am surprised at your insolence in writing to me at all. You know, as I know, that I bought this constituency... may God's curse light upon you and may it make your women as open and as free to the excise officers as your wives and daughters have always been to me while I have represented your scoundrel corporation.
I have the honour to be... your obliged humble servant, Anthony Henley
- MPs reply to constituent, mid 1700s

There is a cultural difference here. One of the core values in Chinese Confucism is that people are fully responsible to care for their parents. It is morally very bad if any person do not offer enough assistance to his or her parents if that is needed.

Also, another issue is Chinese people's high saving rates. Most of the old people in China have almost 20 to 30 years' saving, which are used for urgent medical situations.

Well, there are some situations that some people who cannot work suffer from serious diseases and cannot get enough assistance from their children. They can get limited government assistance, but they are truely miserable. However, just as WEB said, it is hard for sporadic cases to shake the mainstream governance.

You see, Luke, here's the problem for China: China has rapid economic growth right now and for the past 30 years, which has been helped a lot by its very high Chinese savings rate. However, with this diminishing ration of supporters to dependents, that savings is going to be chanelled from producting capital to social services (caring for the elderly). This will reduce China's productivity and economic growth.

However, on the other hand, ask yourself how the Chinese are caring for their elderly right now? Is it with state of the art facilities? I doubt it. Definetely not for the 55-60 of China's population who are still peasants. So, maybe we shouldn't be looking at this through our "entitlement-expecting Western eyes" and consider that the Chinese may just be willing to forego whatever it is we do for the elderly in the West.

This only holds true if China were to shift all of its capital investments to providing health care. The Chinese government is very pragmatic and I doubt they will do this.

Even if they did, it would not stop the eventual rise of China, once she adjusts to a new population equilibrium. Eventually if there are no more fluctuations, then the demographics and problems of those demographics will even out and China will resume her upward trajectory. That is in the worst case scenario. China won't be slowed down that much in the most likely scenario, IMO.

The most likely scenario I speculate, would be in the middle. MORE spending on the elderly, but still considerable Chinese and foreign investment which will continue to boost China's productivity and living standards.

I don't mean because they have to care for the old, I mean because the old don't work.

__________________
... I am surprised at your insolence in writing to me at all. You know, as I know, that I bought this constituency... may God's curse light upon you and may it make your women as open and as free to the excise officers as your wives and daughters have always been to me while I have represented your scoundrel corporation.
I have the honour to be... your obliged humble servant, Anthony Henley
- MPs reply to constituent, mid 1700s

Do you mean that: due to the birth control, Chinese families have less people to support, so people are going to save less??

It is like this. In the cities, most of the elder people have worked in state owned business when they were young, and they have retirement incomes. In the countryside, elder people also work in agriculture. Young men in the countryside go to the cities as migrant workers. Women are working on the fields. The elder people raise chickens, ducks, pigs, cows... Regardless of urban elder people or rural elder people, most of them get money every month or every year from their children. However, if they are in some long term serious chronicle disease, the medical expenses can create lots of sad stories.