China’s Rural Poor Bear the Brunt of the Nation’s Aging Crisis

Shangxule is a hardscrabble farming village in the mountains of the northern Chinese province of Hebei. The elevation is too high for cash crops like strawberries, so locals plant corn, wheat, peanuts, and sweet potatoes, mainly for their own consumption. In recent years, most of the young people have left for jobs in coastal factories or on construction sites. “Who lives here now? Other than the kids, it is just us elderly folk trying to not get sick so we can keep on farming,” says 69-year-old Dong Xiangju, sitting in the small courtyard of her rundown brick and cement farmhouse on a cold December afternoon. Her two sons and a daughter work in the provincial capital of Shijiazhuang and only rarely have time to return home, she says.

As her 70-year-old husband, Gao Chouni, wields a big stick to drive their pig back into its pen and chickens roam about, Dong talks about her biggest worry: the cost of seeing a doctor. “Life isn’t easy at all, and my health keeps getting worse,” she says, slapping her arthritic knee for emphasis. The tab for an overnight hospitalization last year to treat her heart disease and high blood pressure came to 8,000 yuan ($1,154), more than a year of the household’s income, she says. “If we can stand the pain, we don’t go to the hospital—it’s just too expensive.” Their children don’t usually send money home but will occasionally pitch in on medical costs, say the couple.