China is aging, and Beijing too. According to a report published this Friday, September 2 by the municipality, the Chinese capital now has more than 20% of inhabitants aged over 60. And not everyone can stop working.
From our correspondent in Beijing, Stephane Lagarde
A Peking Duck restaurant on one side, a real estate agency on the other, and in the middle, a residence gate guarded by Dou Hongxing.
This former accountant in a state-owned company arrived in Beijing twenty years ago from his province of Liaoning in the north. At 62, he returned to service.
” I retired, but I prefer to work. I’m too bored at home. And then with the Covid restrictions, I can’t travel or see friends as I would like, explains the retiree. My pension is around 4,000 yuan (600 euros) and I get a little less than 120 yuan (20 euros) in cash per day for this guard job. But there’s not much to do, just check that everyone has scanned their health QR code. » Health QR codes make it possible to trace contact cases in the event of an epidemic rebound.
Not much to do, says Mr. Dou, but at night shifts, 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Like him, many retirees do odd jobs in Beijing: part-time online sales store, health pass checks, odd jobs and repairs.
“ I’m alrightsays an old man sitting on a chair in the middle of the sidewalk a little further. I was a driver and I have a good pension. I receive almost 1,000 euros per month, but others have no choice but to work “says this old man sitting on a chair in the middle of the sidewalk a little further.
In the report published by the town hall on Friday, it is not so much the percentages that worry, similar to those of the big cities of the developed countries, but the acceleration of the aging of the population. So there is “ a risk that China will become old before it completes its development », formerly confided, to RFI, researcher Liang Xhunxiao.
In 2021, the share of the resident population aged 60 and over exceeded 20% for the first time. The over 65s exceed 14%, for the first time there too, marking the entry into what the authorities call a ” moderately aging society “, indicate the Beijing News.
If pensions have not increased, since September 1, the costs spent by seniors in hospitals can be reimbursed 100% by health insurance.