by Xinhua writer Wang Aihua

BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- On a sunny afternoon Lin Fang, 55, walked into a human resources center for the elderly in Taicang, a city in east China's Jiangsu Province. After careful inquiries, staff at the center matched Lin, a retiree from a textile factory, with a domestic helper job.

After training provided by the center, Lin was able to secure high praise from her employer. "I never expected to find such a fitting job at this age. It not just means additional income, but also makes my later life different," she remarked with emotion.

The center, the first of its kind in Jiangsu, an economic powerhouse province adjacent to Shanghai, was established in 2024. Since then, it has been expanded to include 30 service stations, primarily serving job-seeking women aged 50 and above, and men 60 years and older -- doing so free of charge. So far, the center has helped over 500 senior citizens secure employment -- and concurrently offered them relevant training.

This institution is a pioneering product with government backing and forms part of China's pursuit of a multi-pronged strategy to address the challenges posed by its aging population. By the end of 2024, the number of elderly individuals aged 60 and above in China had surpassed 310 million, constituting 22 percent of the total population.

At a key Communist Party of China meeting held in Beijing last month, the Party leadership adopted recommendations for formulating the country's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) for economic and social development, which called for greater efforts to tap into the potential of elderly human resources and promote the growth of the silver economy in the years ahead.

This April, the Ministry of Civil Affairs released a document focused on supporting the elderly's social engagement -- which stressed the importance of promoting the regular and long-term development of senior volunteer services.

Wang Xiaoping, minister of human resources and social security, said recently that China will implement the policy of gradually raising its statutory retirement age. "We will optimize policies on age restrictions in employment, social security and other related areas," she said.

China is set to witness a "retirement boom" in the coming decade, with around 20 million people retiring each year. According to official data, more than 38 percent of the elderly aged 60 to 69 in both urban and rural areas are willing to engage in paid work.

Zhou Hongxiu, a 72-year-old villager in Jiangsu, was busy picking and packaging fresh strawberries in her village's production base, while skillfully operating digital temperature control and spraying equipment.

The village, in the city of Zhangjiagang, is one of the numerous Chinese rural communities where mostly elderly people tend the fields and now, as in Zhou's case, turn to modern production lines.

Du Peng, dean of the School of Population and Health at Beijing-based Renmin University of China (RUC), said that a combination of relatively limited financial resources and demographic structure changes in rural areas, has made it difficult for the elderly to cope with the challenges of old age.

"Driven by rapid urbanization, many young rural residents have migrated into cities, leaving the elderly behind -- undermining the traditional Chinese model of family-based elderly care," Du said.

Apart from financial reasons, a survey conducted in 2022 showed that nearly half of the Chinese seniors who had returned to the job market were also in pursuit of maintaining their roles as active participants in society. Work made them feel that they were still able to play useful roles despite their advanced age.

Huang Yalan, a former village official in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, had struggled to adapt when she first retired, finding herself not quite knowing what to do with her time. However, she found a new cause at the age of 61, when she set up an activity room for seniors in the village, keeping herself occupied by tidying the venue, purchasing snacks and sometimes even mediating disputes among guests at the activity room.

"It makes me feel so alive to be with others. I actually became much healthier after getting busy," said Huang, who had dyed her hair a dark shade of red, and who spoke with a radiant smile on her face.

Experts believe the development of elderly human resources and the building of elderly-friendly industries are likely to emerge as tracks leading to new business models in China.

Data from Xiaohongshu, a popular Chinese lifestyle-sharing platform, revealed that active users aged 60 and above had exceeded 30 million by the end of 2024, a two-fold jump in just two years.

Ye Yuping became a live streamer for agricultural products after graduating from a university for the elderly in Taicang. Thanks to recommendations from the human resources center in Taicang, she has built partnerships with a number of businesses and organizations. "I feel so energetic every day and I have an endless list of things to do," she said.

However, experts have pointed out that elderly labor forces still come with significant disadvantages in terms of their abilities to endure continuous labor, high labor intensity and achieve overall labor productivity. Elderly workers are also often not fast learners when it comes to new technologies.

Li Long, a professor with the School of Population and Health, RUC, said universities for the elderly are a major means to prepare this group for meaningful activities.

Data from the China Association of Universities for the Aged, revealed that China had 76,000 elderly universities as of April 2023, involving over 20 million registered students. Currently, more than 50 percent of these universities have offered information technology courses -- and over 40 percent have provided medical and literature-related courses. Enditem