investment in infrastructure facilities. The basic elderly-care service project, started in 2009 in five provinces on a trial basis, is to begin all over the country this year.

To promote the elderly-care undertaking, some 100 institutions, including welfare homes for the aged, professional geriatric nursing colleges and related vocational training schools, are to set up a federation in June in Beijing, according to Zou Wenkai, vice president of the Institute of Administrative Cadres of Civil Affairs.

Since 2009, more government plans on old-age support have been rolled out, including a new elderly-care plan for rural people, a pension draft bill for the migrant population, and a new plan to expand coverage under the basic pension system for urban workers outside their hometowns, which means they may receive their pensions from other provinces where they have migrated.

A baseline

The efforts being made by all the government departments are aimed at providing a pension baseline that covers all elderly people nationwide.

The Department of Pension Insurance at the MHRSS plans to expand the pension system to cover all urban elderly, including retirees from financially struggling collective enterprises that don't provide pension insurance, people over 60 years old with no employment record and no other source of income, and those who have no long-term insurance guarantee because their insurance contribution is less than 15 years. The number of people in the three groups is estimated to stand at 10 million, according to Yin.

The initial plan, though not complete, will create a floor of protection for urban elderly. The principle is that the insurance level should be a little bit lower than pension insurance, and higher than the urban minimum living standard. "We should first of all set up a system to guarantee basic pension security, and then solve the level of the pension," said Yin.

"China needs to greatly adjust its social welfare policies," said Wang Zhenyao. One such adjustment, providing a subsidy for senile people, has been well received.

According to Wang, the number of elderly people with access to pensions now stands at 80 million. They include 50 million elderly people with an employment record, 20 million people receiving the minimum living standard guarantee, and some helpless rural farmers receiving government subsidies, along with people enjoying a new type of pension insurance in rural areas.

Currently, the number of people in China 80 years or older is 18 million. "If all of these senior citizens are covered by the pension system, the number of elderly people enjoying the basic pension system would stand at nearly 100 million," said Wang.

(Source: Caijing, Translated by LI YUZHU)