Many older Chinese are looking beyond traditional care homes, worried about abandonment and quality issues. Their strong preference to age at home is driving a boom in universities, home care services and communities catering to older adults.
Cai Guixia, 60, second from right, learns African drumming from an instructor at the University for the Elderly in Beijing , Oct. 23, 2024. An elderly woman stands at the entrance to the University for the Elderly in Beijing , Oct. 23, 2024. Residents work out in the exercise room at Yan Garden, a high-end senior-focused community that opened in 2015 by insurance company Taikang Insurance Group in Beijing , Nov. 5, 2024.
Du Peng, dean of the school of population and health at Beijing’s Renmin University, said the government is expanding basic care services to all older people who need them, moving beyond its traditional focus on those without family support. Last year, officials compiled a list of basic care services they aim to make available nationwide, including providing ability assessments for those over 65 and care training subsidies for family members of those who are disabled.
Cai Guixia, 60, said she has found fulfillment in African drumming and modeling classes. She thinks she would feel “forsaken” in a conventional nursing home, preferring to hire a domestic helper.She invested more than 800,000 yuan to open a school in Beijing. Cai and Zhang are among its 150 students attending classes in dance, singing, yoga and modeling training for about 1,000 yuan per course each semester. Outside the classroom, her team organizes gatherings where students can socialize.
And there’s Cui Yang, who runs a care station in Beijing, sending helpers zigzagging across the district to provide 30 yuan haircuts at home; accompanying people on hospital visits for 50 yuan per hour and other services. Even with government subsidies including free rent, Cui is losing money. Without the subsidies, the business would fail, she said.
Some vacant schools and kindergartens -- casualties of the country’s declining birthrate -- are meanwhile being transformed into care facilities for older people.
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