China will set up a system to subsidize the provision of elderly care to support disadvantaged senior citizens, which is considered an important part of the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Sunday.

Dou Yupei, vice-minister of civil affairs, told a national meeting in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province, that the central government will give financial aid to disadvantaged, low-income senior citizens to help pay for nursing homes or care in the community.

China will also improve the government's support system for the elderly, who have been surviving on local government subsidies, to guarantee their basic living conditions, which are to be on par with those of the average local resident.

The pressure to improve nursing services for the elderly has increased with China's aging population, an imperfect social welfare system and unequal development in urban and rural areas, said Minister of Civil Affairs Li Liguo, who delivered a keynote speech at the meeting.

Statistics from the ministry show that China has an aging population of 167 million, of which 11.4 percent were over the age of 80 by the end of 2009. About 31.59 million senior citizens have varying physical or mental impairments.

Nationwide, more than 50 percent of elderly couples live on their own without care from their children, while independent elderly couples comprise nearly 70 percent of urban households in big and medium-sized cities, Li said.

Meanwhile, nursing facilities in China lag behind the rising demand posed by the aging population.

There are an estimated 2.66 million beds in the country's nursing homes, which are able to accommodate only 1.59 percent of the elderly population, Dou pointed out.

"It is necessary to leave the limited resources at nursing homes to those who really need them," said Fang Jiake, deputy head of the Tianjin-based Hetong Senior Citizens Welfare Association.

Nursing physically and mentally impaired senior citizens requires professional training and skills. However, most staff at nursing homes are laid-off workers in their 40s or 50s, Fang told China Daily.

"We need to think about providing professional training and offering incentives for more talented young people to enter and stay in the profession," he added.

(China Daily November 9, 2010)