People often mistake 49-year-old Liu Yuling for the daughter of
93-year-old Cui Yuhai as Liu supports Cui during his twice-a-day
stroll in the community garden. Liu spends over ten hours in Cui's
40-square- meter apartment every day. Since Cui's wife died two
years ago, Liu has been the first person the elderly man sees when
he wakes up in the morning and the person who says good night to
him at his bedside. She cooks meals, washes his clothing, shops for
his favorite snack food, keeps diaries on his health care and
expenditure and listens to his stories. To better communicate with
the elderly man, Liu even learned to master Cui's dialect.
"I wish I could have such a good daughter as her," Cui tells
anyone who asks whether Liu is his daughter. "She treats me just
like a good daughter would."
On a monthly salary of 400 yuan ($54) per month, Liu started to
take care of Cui and his wife in 2004 as a housekeeper for the
elderly, a system invented in the coastal city of Dalian of
Liaoning Province in 2002.
Like Liu, who was laid off from a wool product factory in 2002,
all housekeepers are unemployed workers who were retrained by the
government. All of these housekeepers are registered and managed by
government agencies. Their services are priced at a low level so
that they are affordable to elderly citizens. Meanwhile, the
government has ensured that their income from working as a
housekeeper for the elderly won't affect their unemployment
allowance. For elderly citizens who have no children and no income,
the government pays for part or all of their home nurse
services.
Up to last May, over 2,600 households in Dalian had enjoyed the
services of a housekeeper, whose services are evaluated by their
patrons. They can get a pay rise if they are promoted to a
three-star or five-star housekeeper based on their service
quality.
"This system of supporting the elderly has comforted the two
groups of disadvantageous people, the elderly and the unemployed,"
said Han Yumin, a top civil affairs official of Shahekou District
of Dalian, which employs over 726 housekeepers for the elderly.
As one of China's fastest aging cities, Dalian has 965,300
elderly citizens of 60 years old and above, accounting for 16.85
percent of total population. This is far above China's national
average of 12.26 percent. It is estimated that by 2025 one in four
of Dalian's citizens will be elderly.
"This fact of being an aging society since 1987 has propelled
Dalian to lead other Chinese cities to explore new methods to
satisfy the demands of the elderly," said Yang Fubin, Director of
the social welfare department of Dalian Civil Affairs Bureau.
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Yang told Beijing Review that the development of social
welfare for the elderly in Dalian in the last five years has
exhibited three characteristics. First is the exploration of new
models to satisfy the different demands of elderly citizens of
different age groups and economic capacities. Second is to increase
the proportion of elderly people enjoying government living
subsidies. Third is to learn from nursing homes in Japan. One
reason for this is that Dalian is geographically close to Japan.
Another is that as the most rapidly aging country in the world,
Japan has accumulated a wealth of experience in providing social
services for the elderly. During the 2005 Aichi Expo, Dalian Civil
Affairs Bureau sent a delegation to attract investment and
technical cooperation from Japanese companies involved in elderly
care. This made Dalian the first city to promote foreign investment
in caring for the elderly.
"In the past, government welfare for the elderly has been mainly
confined to taking care of elderly people without children and
income at government-run homes for the elderly. Now the
government's increased financial strength and people-oriented
governance guidelines will enable a larger proportion of elderly
people to enjoy social benefits," said Yang.
New services
In 2004, Minister of Civil Affairs Li Xueju called upon
civil affairs agencies of different levels to learn from Dalian's
diversified models.
One new model is that the government issues bills to elderly
citizens who have financial difficulty but don't want to move into
government homes for the aged. The bills, printed with different
face values, can be used to pay for the employment of
government-trained housekeepers and lunches at a discounted price
at government-run elderly citizens leisure centers.
Several agencies to care for the elderly have been set up in
Dalian. By calling the hotline number of these agencies, elderly
citizens can get help in choosing a nursing home that suits their
demands, booking home delivery of heavy consumer goods such as
flour and edible oil, free psychological and health consultation,
and book accommodation at resort communities for the elderly when
they want to travel to other cities in China. The government offers
tax exemption incentives to these companies so that their services
can be free or priced very low.
?
Since homes for the elderly cannot provide enough beds to meet
the growing demand in Dalian, the city government has also started
to offer economic incentives to private homes for the elderly so
that more private investment can be injected into this area.
Yang said in Dalian elderly people in financial difficulty can
either enjoy government-subsidized housekeeper services or live in
homes for the elderly where the government pays part or all of
their expenses; well-off elderly people can live in resort
communities for the elderly in Dalian or other cities; the elderly
who like the atmosphere of a big family can choose a home according
to their financial capacity; and the elderly who don't want to
leave home can go to nearby leisure centers to do exercise, dance,
play cards or chat with other elderly people.
"We really cannot afford to waste any time in improving social
welfare for the elderly. Since China started to implement its
family-planning policies in late 1970s, the first generation of
parents with a single child will turn senior citizens in a few
years. Elderly people in an extended family may need more than
their children can provide," said Yang.
(Beijing Review December 21, 2007)
