China: in Beijing, the aging of the population is accelerating
A woman with her arms full of food, leaving a supermarket in Beijing, April 25, 2022. Illustrative image.
AFP - JADE GAO
Text by: Stéphane Lagarde Follow
2 mins
China is aging, and Beijing too.
According to a report published this Friday, September 2 by the municipality, the Chinese capital now has more than 20% of inhabitants aged over 60.
And not everyone can stop working.
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From our correspondent in Beijing
,
Stéphane Lagarde
A Peking Duck restaurant on one side, a real estate agency on the other, and in the middle, a residence gate guarded by Dou Hongxing.
This former accountant in a state-owned company arrived in Beijing twenty years ago from his province of Liaoning in the north.
At 62, he returned to service.
“
I retired, but I prefer to work.
I'm too bored at home.
And then with the Covid restrictions, I cannot travel or see friends as I would like,
explains the retiree.
My pension is about 4,000 yuan (600 euros) and I receive a little less than 120 yuan (20 euros)
in cash per day for this guard job.
But there's not much to do, just check that everyone has scanned their health QR code.
» Health QR codes make it possible to trace contact cases in the event of an epidemic rebound.
Not much to do, says Mr. Dou, but at night shifts, 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.
Like him, many retirees do odd jobs in Beijing: part-time online sales store, health pass checks, odd jobs and repairs.
“
I'm fine
, says an old man sitting on a chair in the middle of the sidewalk a little further.
I was a driver and I have a good pension.
I receive nearly 1,000 euros per month, but others have no choice but to work
,” confides this old man sitting on a chair in the middle of the sidewalk a little further.
In the report published by the town hall on Friday, it is not so much the percentages that worry, similar to those of the big cities of the developed countries, but the acceleration of the aging of the population.
There is therefore "
a risk that China will become old before it has completed its development
",
researcher Liang Xhunxiao
once confided to RFI .
In 2021, the share of the resident population aged 60 and over exceeded 20% for the first time.
Those over 65 exceed 14%, for the first time there too, marking the entry into what authorities call a “
moderately aging society
”, reports the
Beijing News
.
If pensions have not increased, since September 1, the costs spent by seniors in hospitals can be reimbursed 100% by health insurance.
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