Mounting supporting pressure

Another threat, as demographer Mu Guangzong with Peking University said, is the inability of single-child couples to support their elderly parents.

Lin Xu's family has been babysitting his grandmother since she lost the ability to move ten years ago. Luckily, his mother has brothers and sisters, each taking a share of the burden. Lin Xu worried, "What if my parents turned so needy?"

Chinese support their parents mainly by family care, as a practice of filial piety. However, to a single-child couple that would mean two people look after four people.

China has 41,000 assisted-care institutions providing 11.6 beds for every thousandth senior citizen, far less than the 50 to 70 beds of developed countries, figures from the China National Committee on Aging showed.

Among these institutions, nonprofit agencies mainly accommodate the childless, while private ones are usually underresourced, the committee said.

What might also be underresourced is the pool of pension fund.

Now 10 percent of Chinese are aged over 60. The proportion is estimated to hit 30 percent by 2050, and there will be 2.1 working-age adults for every retiree by then. While the rate was 13 to 1 in 1980 and 3 to 1 in 2003, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

With less working-age people to pay for the pension fund, but more to cover, economic woes loom large.

"China grows old before it grows rich, and the social security system is not well in place yet," said Ji Baocheng.

The latest figure suggested the pension fund covered 76 percent of urban employees, according to a report by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

Coverage for the countryside is not yet available, but Beijing, the capital city, has set the target at 60 percent for the year 2009.

Scholars like professor Wu Cangping with Renmin University of China suggested fixing the social safety net rather than relaxing birth control.

Last week, China introduced a pilot pension plan for its 900 million farmers, a move in this direction.

As to a policy shift to relaxing birth control, many scholars are still pushing for it.

"Since it takes time for the population policy to work, we must act before it is too late," Ji Baocheng said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2009)