Elder-care issues loom for those who have lost their only child
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E-mail Xinhua, June 21, 2012
Unlike many Chinese parents, Shen Xiuyi and her husband are not looking forward to the upcoming Dragon Boat Festival, which marks a time when busy sons and daughters return home for family reunions.
For Shen, 55, the upcoming festival is no different from the other festivals scattered throughout the year that leave her feeling lonely and heartbroken.
"I have been afraid of festivals since my daughter passed away three years ago. Those complete families' happiness hurts me a lot and I feel anxious about my future," Shen said, sobbing, during an exclusive interview with Xinhua in eastern city of Hangzhou.
Shen has suffered great pains from losing her only child, especially as she and her husband approach old age.
The first generation of parents from single-child families are stepping into their old age since the one-child policy was launched across the country in the early 1980s.
Zhang Caixia, a 56-year-old single mother, faces an even worse situation.
Zhang found that her only daughter, 28, had committed suicide in her room during this year's Spring Festival in the city of Linyi in eastern province of Shandong.
Having singlehandedly raised her daughter, the devastated woman felt she had lost the only hope of her life.
"Nobody will chat with me and take care of me anymore. After I die, no one will come to visit my grave," Zhang said.
Unlucky parents like Shen and Zhang are just extreme examples of a looming issue faced by almost all single-child families in China -- who is going to support the aging parents if the only child is unable or unwilling to do so?
Ge Wei, a geriatrician and consultant with the provincial Institute on Aging of Zhejiang, said an increasing number of old-aged people have started to worry about elder-care issues in recent years.
"I, myself, have only one child, so I can understand their concerns. The parents of single-child families face a relatively high chance of having no one to care for them in their twilight years," said Ge in his 60s.
He explained that some of the sons and daughters of single-child families are not willing to take care of their parents or they neglect their parents' loneliness because they are busy working and facing great social pressures themselves, while others die in their youth from unexpected accidents, disasters or diseases.
China's traditional concept of caring for the elderly is changing along with changes in the family structure.
"My mother-in-law had nine children, so they took turns taking care of her when she got ill in her later years," said Ge. "But this is not practical today, as the current family structure usually takes on the mode of four-two-one, that is, four elderly people, two adults and one child."
The "4-2-1" phenomenon is largely the result of the family planning policies China implemented in the 1980s to control its population, which had boomed since the 1950s.
The scale of the family has narrowed; therefore, the present population structure presents a heavy burden for young Chinese people in supporting the elderly. The elder-care issue should be shouldered not only by the children, but also by the country's pension insurance system, Ge said.
China's National Population and Family Planning Commission announced in 2007 that the number of "only children" living in China at that time was around 90 million. The number is believed to have grown to over 100 million now.
Though there is no official data on the number of single-child families in which the only child is dead or disabled, the Guangzhou Daily estimated in a report in May that the number is likely to stand at more than 1 million.
Shen is among mothers who are too old to bear their own children again.
"I don't want to simply blame the one-child policy, because to anyone who loses the child, the torment is the same," Shen said. "But I hope the government can pay more attention to the unlucky families like us."
Her views were echoed by "Dier's Mom," an Internet user who helps administrate an online forum for parents who have lost their only child.
These unlucky families have already started to seek help from the government via various channels, "Dier's Mom" said.
They believe the government could help them establish a platform so they can talk to each other, seek consultation, and provide assistance to anyone in need of help.
In fact, China's laws on population and family planning stipulate local governments' responsibility in providing necessary assistance to parents whose only child is dead or disabled.
China issued regulations on assistance to families whose only child is dead or disabled in August 2007. The regulations were implemented across the country in 2008.
According to the regulations, parents whose only child has died or is disabled can receive a certain amount of monthly subsidies on the condition that the parents are 49 or older.
"My husband and I could each get a monthly subsidy of 200 yuan (31 U.S. dollars) after we applied for the assistance," Shen said. "But there are still some families that don't know they can get the subsidy from the government."
Besides the financial assistance, it is more important to seek ways to soothe the pain.
In the online community, parents communicate and comfort each other by sharing their own experiences. Some of them from different parts of the country even visited a mother in east Chna's city of Wuxi last year, after she was diagnosed with cancer.
"The Internet has brought us heartbroken parents together. Someone suggested in the online community that a residential community should be established for us to live together, so we can take care of each other," Shen said.
The one-child policy has proven effective during the past 30 years, as a census conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed the country's population growth rate falling from 2.09 percent in 1982 to 0.57 percent in 2010.
However, a lower number of births has spurred an "aging society," a phenomenon in which 10 percent or more of a country's population is at or above the age of 60. The NBS census showed an aged population of 177 million in China, or 13.26 percent of the entire population.
Figuring out how to take care of the country's elderly, including these elderly parents who have lost their only child, is a growing problem in China, said Wang Xianyi, director of the Science Research Center under the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of Aging Population.
It is vital to improve the country's pension insurance system, Wang said.
A complete and reliable pension insurance system can not only ensure the elderly worry-free twilight years, but it can also provide young couples with a wider array of choices, as they can choose to have a child or opt for a "DINK" family, or "double income, no kids" family, said Professor Qiao Xiaochun, a population expert with Peking University.
As for the parents who have lost their children, like Shen Xiuyi and Zhang Caixia, the care in the psychological aspect is much needed, Qiao said.
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