Source: CCTV.com

12-11-2006 15:48

At the end of the 20th century, still in the thick of a battle to limit the rampant growth of its population, China found itself with a new challenge: that of a graying society, which is to say that the average age of its population began to rise.

According to the Chinese Census Bureau, in the year 2004, there were already 145 million Chinese people over the age of 60, accounting for just over 11% of the national population. According to experts’ predictions, and supported by the latest statistics, by the year 2020, there will be 243 million older people, and by 2050, there will be 400 million, an estimated 26% of the total population. Till the end of 2004, there were 35.1% of China’s elderly were empty nesters, 23.4% were widowers.

What is it like to be an older person? Perhaps many people haven’t given much thought to what the last years of one’s life can mean to a person. When you have lost the ability to work, it doesn’t just mean the decrease of your salary, but in many cases, also getting excluded from society’s mainstream, and facing some of life’s tragedies, like an empty nest, illness, or becoming a widow. To many older people who now face life alone, the prospect of finding another person to share life with is a common dream.

When a person reaches old age, the social opportunities that society provides are at best different from those available to younger people, and at worst, non-existent. Though older people can certainly choose to participate in activities with others, the majority of their time is still spent alone.

In life, we are fortunate if we can avoid tragedies brought on by unexpected, uncontrollable things. However, anyone who enters into marriage faces the likelihood of that happy marriage ending in the death of one partner before the other, leaving one as a widow. And to make a bad situation worse, most people become widows at the time in life when they are at their most fragile.