Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – By 2025 China might introduce a state-funded retirement system for workers in rural communities in a effort to help provide a stable future for 400 million future elderly retirees. 

Positively evaluating such a possibility, against the scepticism and fears of many analysts, is Dr. Zeng Yi, director of the Center for Healthy Aging and Family Studies at Beijing University. His positive comments came during a lecture held in the Chinese capital.

"Our per capita GNP is at the same level as those of Northern European countries in last century when the latter set up pension plans for their rural workforce. Why can't China do the same thing now?" professor Zeng said.

In his opinion, waiting until 2025 to implement such a system would be too late to solve the aging population's social and economic problems. Zeng Yi believes that "during this so-called 'Golden Age' China is capable of combining huge sums of state capital with the savings of individual citizens to build up a solid fiancial and institutional base for a social security for elderly in rural areas." 

The country's aging problem has hit rural areas the hardest, where youth have abandoned fields in search a better paying jobs in more developed cities. "I think the government has the duty to take on a leadership role in monitoring the creation of retirement system for rural citizens. It is unfair that the government invests only in urban areas and overlooks rural regions," Zeng  said.  

In 1970 China's average life expectancy stood at 61 years of age. By 2002 it rose by 10 years to 71. For every 1000 inhabitants, the death rate has gone down from 8.0 in 1970 to 6.5 in 2003. In 2003 23% of the Chinese population was 0-14 years old while 70% were 15-64 and 7% 65 years and older. In the 1990s there were much more children in the 0-14 age range (27.7%) while the 65+ age group was lower (5.6%).

According to UN estimates, China's elderly population (65 and older) will rise from the current 7% figure to 20% in 2040 and 28.7% by 2050, that is, amounting to roughly 400 million retirement-age elderly. The UN predicts that Chinese over the age of 80 will increase from today's 8 million to 50 million by 2050.     

China's population control policies have also contributed to the aging problem. The government's family planning measures, particularly that of its "only-child" policy has been a battle horse for promoting Beijing's social and economic programs. 

By 2043 the Chinese population will be somewhere in the range of 1.48-1.55 billion, China's minister for population control and family planning, Zhang Weiqing, said last month.

According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), in June of 2003 the Chinese population was 1,319,767,000, 21% of the world's total inhabitants.

China's population growth rate was 0.7% in 2003 versus 1.11% in 1980 and 1.07% in 1990. According to UNESCAP, the current fertility rate (number of children per woman) is 1.8, while it was as high as 5.7 in 1960 but dropped to 2.2 by 1990. In 2003 for every 1000 inhabitants China's birth rate was 15.2, cut in half with respect to the 33.0 rate recorded in 1970. (MR)

• china
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• pensions