The problem of a young person facing huge pressure to provide for the elderly has attracted people's attention. The young man's name is Liu Xinyu and he is from Rudong County, Jiangsu Province, China. Before he got married, he faced seven elderly people to support: his 45-year-old mother, 91-year-old great-grandmother, 68-year-old grandmother, 66-year-old grandfather, 47-year-old father, 90-year-old great-grandfather and 69-year-old grandfather. The responsibilities and pressures of this family are unprecedented.
Recently, a ** has been widely circulated on the Internet and has attracted people's attention. **, a middle-aged man pushes two elderly people in wheelchairs, one of whom has an oxygen tube in his nose, as if telling his son. This ** makes people feel sad and also reflects the plight faced by only children. According to data released by the Chinese Bureau of Statistics, the number of births in the country in 2023 will be 9.02 million, and the birth rate will be 639, the number of deaths was 11.1 million, and the mortality rate was 787 with a natural growth rate of -148‰。Based on these data, people began to wonder what kind of impact would it have on society and families in the face of such a low birth rate and high mortality rate. For places like Rudong County, Jiangsu Province, where the elderly generally live longer, the increase in the number of elderly people means problems such as population decline and labor shortages.
Rudong County is one of the most severely depopulated and aging areas in China. As early as the early 60s of the last century, the county began to implement the family planning policy, and was rated as an "advanced unit of family planning" and a "national excellent family planning demonstration county", with a one-child rate of more than 95%. However, with the passage of time, the strict implementation of the family planning policy has led to the weakening of the inheritance power of young people, resulting in a declining population and an aging population. It is estimated that by 2030, the population over 60 years old in Rudong County will account for 57% of the total population.
The problems posed by ageing are not just about pensions. The cost of medical care for older people is often five or six times higher than that of younger people, which means that more resources may need to be invested to meet the medical needs of older adults in the future. At the same time, a declining population may also lead to a shortage of medical resources and an increase in medical costs. This is a huge challenge for a region's healthcare system. In addition, population decline can affect employment and economic development. Depression and brain drain in small localities are a widespread problem. On the one hand, the depopulation has led to a decrease in commercial activity, some business districts and markets have lost their former vitality, and local tax revenues have also decreased, reducing the economic vitality of the region. On the other hand, people tend to go to first-tier cities in search of better employment opportunities, resulting in serious attrition in county seats.
People are beginning to think about how to deal with the challenges posed by a declining population and an aging population. Some have suggested that education and economic development are among the main reasons for the early aging of the population. Education factors account for 30 per cent and economic development factors account for 20 per cent. In Rudong County, the cost of raising children is very high, and it is difficult for individuals to bear these costs, and it is necessary to work together with the society to establish a compensation mechanism for the cost of childbirth. However, even if this is done, the results will not be immediate.
To sum up, the problem of population decline and ageing poses a huge challenge that requires the joint efforts of **, society and individuals to solve. However, there are some doubts about whether there is a viable solution to this problem. How to balance the size of the population and economic development, how to solve the problem of old-age care and the shortage of medical resources, and how to attract young people to stay in small places for employment all need to be studied and thought about in depth. In the coming decades, China will face more ageing challenges, which can only be met by finding the right solutions.