"They work while they hold their legs"

How Russian and Chinese pensioners differ and how different from each other

In Beijing , a rally of parents who lost their only child took place near the building of the National Health and Family Planning Bureau. They demanded that the authorities provide them with additional material support, since there would be no one to take care of their old age. The problem of the aging population in China is now very acute. As of last year, the number of residents of China over the age of 65 was 15 percent, or 194 million people. At the same time, according to the general standards of the UN, the population is considered old if such an indicator reaches 7 percent. The reason for the current situation is the notorious policy "One family-one child" , which was introduced in the 70s of the last century.

In China, until recently, with rare exceptions, families were allowed to have only one child. And although the PRC authorities in recent years have made some concessions, allowing families to start a second child, and even promised to completely cancel the restrictions on the birth rate, the crisis continues to aggravate. A very serious imbalance is also observed in the gender composition of the Chinese population - there are significantly more men than women.

The pension system in China, in which economic reforms led to serious social shifts, is only formed. Older people are afraid to be left without the support that the young generation traditionally provided to them. About how the PRC authorities intend to solve all these problems, and how the Chinese pensioner differs from the Russian, the Chinesist, the head of the Eastern Studies of the Higher Superior in Moscow, Alexei Maslov :

- China for a long time did not actually regulate its population, although it seemed to many in the world that China put a demography under very tight control. The policy was quite simple: the rigid restraint of the birth of the second child in the family. Now, in fact, there is a restraint of the birth of a third child in the family. And this is an absolutely economically unjustified policy, it is quite primitive. These are just prohibitions that were introduced back in the 1970s, when the nation was in a different economic situation and in another political situation. Simply put, feeding such a large, rapidly growing population in the 1970-80s was not easy. Therefore, these prohibitions were introduced, and the second child was not registered in the family, finances were not allocated for him, budget funds were not allocated, including for schooling at the university. That is, in fact, this person "did not exist."

Subsequently, it turned out that the birth of the second and third child did not lead to the regulation of the situation, but to the impoverishment of the family, since the content of the second child was entirely on her shoulders. Naturally, everyone knew about these children, but they did not have any certificates, they could not officially get to work, replenished the army of hidden unemployed. This led to the first very serious crisis in China’s demographic and economic policy. These people were not laid in the budget, they remained illiterate, the girls were forced to work in restaurants, serve in cities, and massage salons. That is, it turned out that the criminality of this situation increased quite sharply. And when the 90s of the twentieth century came, the share of the urban population began to grow rapidly, it is now almost 56 percent. There is a sharp decrease in the birth rate not due to administrative regulation, but due to the fact that parents who work in normal urban conditions simply cannot afford to support two, three children.

Beijing children

But at the same time, in China there are many people who, for various reasons, lost their only child, and the second was forbidden to give birth to them. Moreover, for a long time, care for obstetric care in China was poorly set. Thus, China today faces three factors that lead to very serious destabilization - aging of the population due to unjustified inhibition of the reproduction of offspring; the presence of a large number of families who are left without children, without breadwinners, primarily without boys who have always been the main members of the family; The refusal of city families is to acquire a large number of children. All this will affect the further situation with human resources in China.

- Is this a long -term problem? Can I somehow solve it? And is there a pension provision of older people in China?

- Today in China, officially the population is about 1 billion 400 million people. In reality, much more, because of the unregistered population. And for a long time it was assumed that the population of China would reach its peak by 2026. But, as it turns out, the peak will be reached by 2020. This means that from this moment a decrease in the population will begin and a sharp increase in the share of the elderly, who simply need to be fed. And the situation will take shape when almost a third of the population of China will become non -working. That is, a bomb for a future Chinese economy is laid today.

There is pensions in China, but it applies only to those who live in cities and who worked for some time in urban conditions. Formally, pension reform is almost completed, but it so happened that many old people simply did not move to the cities and continue to live in the village. There was hope for a gradual increase in the share of the urban population, as occurred in Singapore, Malaysia, when almost the entire population gradually became urban. But today we see another situation - reverse migration. In 2015, almost 5-6 million people migrated to the village. Maybe for China this is not too large scale, but there is some trend. They move to the village, first of all, in order to care for the old people, and in this regard they fall out of the city cycle of life.

Morning gymnastics. Demonstration performances to the public at one of the universities of the city of Zhenzhou. 2015

In China, a bet on a change in the nature of labor is made. Many people receive a good education, including abroad - more than 1.5 million Chinese students study there, of which almost 300 thousand in the USA, more than 60 thousand in the UK. Their work is more productive, it requires a smaller number of human resources, but - with an emphasis on quality. Many of the Chinese students do not return back to the Chinese economy. There is a transition of China from a large manufacturer to a technically developed country where fewer employees are required, but more quality of their work. Unfortunately, this cannot be done quickly and China to a certain extent missed this chance over the past decades, which is why a large number of problems arise. Therefore, today in many cities there are small and large demonstrations demanding that the state pays with the population for the wrong policy that was pursued in the field of demography.

- And is the state going to pay?

- The state believes that it paid due to what has carried out pension reform. Let the pensions are not very large, they, depending on the area where the person worked, is fluctuating from $ 30 to $ 100, but the state is sure that due to free medical care, transport and other benefits, it paid with older people.

A terrible imbalance in the gender composition of the population should be taken into account. Today, 100 girls are born for 116 boys. 34 million people in China are boys, boys, men who can never find a couple. The imbalance laid down today, if China does not have time to solve the problem with demography before, will be a terrible blow throughout the economy.

- You said that people are moving from city to village to take care of their loved ones. Is this a tradition in China? Or these people cannot find a job in the city to earn and send money to the village?

On the outskirts of large cities in China there is a rural population who has nothing to do

- The population in cities grew largely not due to the fact that people were supplied to the cities - the cities themselves grew and to a certain extent seized the villages. That is, the population was in the same place and became formally the urban population. But at the same time, it retained traditions. That is why there is a rural population on the outskirts of large cities in China, which has nothing to do. People usually contain small shops, do something on the household, repairs something, but are not manufacturers. Having lived in such conditions for 5-10 years, they understand that they cannot find places in the city, and are served in the village. But there are already problems there, since the cities have eaten arable land, and China is in dire need of food production. And the only thing they can do in the villages is to take care of their elderly parents. Many Chinese live today for two houses-they come to the cities for the cheapest work, work out the season, for example, in construction, on servicing some supermarkets, which also intensify their work in a seasonal way, and then return to the villages again.

- If I asked you to compare a typical Russian pensioner and a typical Chinese pensioner, what do you see the main similarity and difference?

- The state cares about Chinese pensioners seriously, and this is manifested not so much in the allocated money as in the creation of a wide variety of free courses: dances for older people, gymnastics, and so on. This is a complete exemption from payment at the entrance to museums, to exhibitions, free travel in city transport. At the same time, I must say that the elderly population of China is people who are not very demanding. The main life activity of the current old people fell on the 1960-70s, that is, for the period of the cultural revolution, when people were forced to live as modestly as possible. The elderly population does not actively go to the resorts, generally moves around the country, does not seek to go to rest, if compared with Russia, to Turkey, or even to its own tropical island of Hainan. Basically, old people are sitting at home. Their cultural requests are lower than that of Russian pensioners. People gather in the evenings on the streets, talk among themselves - personal communication is very important! The elderly Chinese are less demanding - but, on the other hand, they are more pleased with life. The protest potential is not laid down in the old people, but in their children, who understand that they now have to take care of their parents.

The elderly population of China is people who are not very demanding

- In Russia, they are quite negative about any attempts to increase the retirement age. At what age does the average Chinese stop working?

- If we are talking about the traditional rural population, then, of course, the old people work while they are holding their legs. This is generally characteristic of people in rural areas. And I repeatedly faced the fact that people worked both at 80 and at 85 and felt quite well. Although they looked, perhaps, completely “wiped” - without teeth, with a mass of illness. Old men do not want to sit on their own children. If we talk about the urban population, there is a formal retirement period - 60 years. And older people seek to work just as long as possible, because for China the psychology of a pensioner in itself is absolutely uncharacteristic. People want to work as long as possible to make money. But modern cities no longer need older people - they do not have sufficient experience in modern business and production, or the ability to quickly solve problems, they do not know foreign languages. As soon as a person reaches retirement age, they just say goodbye to him, ”says Alexey Maslov .