Minhang Welfare Center, which can accommodate some 600 elders, was established with government funds of 70 million yuan.

Senior couples can lead their normal family lives in the resthome apartments equipped with full cooking facilities.

Meanwhile, single elderly people may socialize among themselves, and enjoy the convenience by ordering meals and enjoying regular medical checkups.

The individual monthly rental is 600 yuan (US$72.3). The resthome charges each resident 150 yuan (US$18.1) for nursing services per month.

About 100 elderly people have registered with the newly built resthome apartments and will move in next month.

Sources said that 200 senior citizens who had moved in the resthome's sanitarium were satisfied with the services there. These residents are an average age of 82, with the oldest at 98.

Experts said that since the nuclear family is gradually replacing the traditional big family, social institutions like resthomes will play an increasingly important role in supporting the aging demographics.

It is a Chinese tradition that children should support and take care of their aging parents.

However, as China's society is operating at an increasingly fast tempo, more parents realize that it would be very difficult for their working children to shoulder the responsibility and a government-funded resthome might be a good substitute.

(Xinhua 01/14/2001)