Netizens who recorded these videos expressed their concerns, stating that if our parents are in such a situation, what is the purpose of our own growth? Furthermore, these videos featuring the elderly did not adhere to the authorities' directive to 'tell a good Chinese story' and have been ordered for deletion by the Chinese Communist authorities. (Video Screenshot)
[People News] As China's economy continues to struggle, an increasing number of young people are choosing to 'lie flat', opting out of marriage and childbirth, which has exacerbated the country's declining birthrate crisis. Many kindergartens across China are facing closures due to enrollment difficulties. In response, innovative operators have quickly shifted their focus to the elderly, transforming the vacant kindergartens into elderly care service centres. Chinese netizens humorously noted that these elderly individuals have finally returned to their roots, ageing in the same buildings where they spent their childhood.
Elderly Dependency Ratio Surpasses Child Dependency Ratio
According to a report by 'First Financial' on October 25, based on the 'China Statistical Yearbook 2026', in 2025, the population aged 0 to 14 in China is projected to be 212.76 million, making up 15.1% of the total population; meanwhile, the population aged 65 and older is expected to reach 223.65 million, accounting for 15.9% of the total population.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, as published in the 'China Statistical Yearbook 2026', indicates that by 2025, the elderly dependency ratio will reach 23.1%, surpassing the child dependency ratio of 22% for the first time (for every 100 working-age individuals, there will be 23.1 elderly people and 22 children), resulting in a combined total dependency ratio of 45.1%. This signifies a new historical phase in which the number of dependent elderly individuals officially exceeds that of children in China.
The dependency ratio, also known as the dependency coefficient, indicates the proportion of the non-working-age population relative to the working-age population, which is defined as individuals aged 15 to 64. The total dependency ratio is the sum of the child dependency ratio and the elderly dependency ratio.
Closure of Kindergartens Converted into Nursing Homes
In light of a significant decline in birth rates, there has been a widespread closure of kindergartens. According to the '2025 National Education Development Statistical Bulletin,' over 20,000 kindergartens were closed nationwide in 2025 alone, resulting in a reduction of more than 3.5 million children enrolled. To survive, many operators have creatively repurposed the closed kindergartens into nursing homes.
This trend has ignited enthusiastic discussions among netizens in mainland China. Some have humorously commented that this represents a 'seamless transition' for the same cohort of individuals. 'Those born in the 80s and 90s attended this kindergarten, and when they grow old, they move back to the same building to live in a nursing home. It’s essentially a “one-stop service,” never leaving the community.'
Netizens have also joked that the transition of kindergarten teachers to nursing homes is 'professionally aligned.' 'Previously, they entertained young children with “clap your hands, eat your fruits,” and now they engage the elderly with “clap your hands, take your medicine.” The methods remain unchanged; it’s just that “little friends” have become “old kids.”' 'The slide is still there; it’s just the players who have changed.'
Some netizens shared photos of the repurposed kindergartens, expressing nostalgia for the days when the yard was filled with children in open-crotch pants, now replaced by elderly men and women sitting in the yard soaking up the sun with canes.
However, the overwhelming sentiment among netizens is one of anxiety about the future, with many sighing, 'We can’t afford to live anymore,' and 'Who will take care of our generation?'
Many individuals born in the 1980s and 1990s, who are only children, express feelings of shock when they observe the current situation. The future family structure of '4-2-1' or even '8-4-2-1' (with multiple elderly individuals and very few young people) raises concerns about whether the social security system will be adequate when they themselves grow old. Will there be enough medical care and elderly care facilities?
A Heavy Atmosphere in Towns
According to estimates from official sources and research institutions, when the 'elderly dependency ratio' officially exceeds the 'child dependency ratio' (indicating that the number of elderly people surpasses that of children), it marks a complete transformation of the social population structure from a 'pyramid shape' to an 'inverted pyramid shape' or 'olive shape.' For China, which has enjoyed decades of a 'demographic dividend,' this shift indeed evokes a sense of 'coldness that is almost terrifying' and suffocating in this era.
Videos captured by budget travellers in various towns across China reveal that many villages are predominantly populated by elderly individuals who are shopping, sunbathing, and playing poker, while middle-aged and young people are seldom seen. Even the left-behind children playing in the streets are a rare sight. This phenomenon has prompted many netizens to remark that these towns, lacking children and young people, are enveloped in a heavy twilight atmosphere, making it difficult to perceive any vitality and creating a sense of oppression.
The Cost of Pursuing 'Extreme Efficiency' in Economic Development
The term 'Extreme-Efficiency Development Model' describes a development strategy where a country or regime prioritises the 'rapid growth of specific indicators'—such as GDP, industrial output, infrastructure scale, and even population control metrics—as its ultimate goal. This approach employs highly centralised power and resources to eliminate any market, legal, ethical, or social opposition, thereby pushing the pace of development and resource utilisation to their limits in a very short timeframe.
Many observers are often astonished by China's swift urbanisation, characterised by the proliferation of skyscrapers, highways, high-speed rail, and subways that spread across urban landscapes like a spider web. While it may seem prosperous at first glance, few realise that this represents a distorted form of development under the authoritarian rule of the Communist Party. This model, marked by 'high-intensity administrative dominance' and a 'pursuit of extreme efficiency,' has led to the rapid compression and eruption of numerous social contradictions and structural issues.
For instance, despite China emerging as the world's second-largest economy, the budget and investment from the Communist Party authorities in public services such as healthcare, education, and elderly care have historically constituted a low percentage of GDP. This has resulted in a stark disparity between high development and low security.
Additionally, the household registration system and inadequate artificial redistribution have left a vast 'peasant' population unable to access the same welfare benefits as urban residents, causing wealth to concentrate in a few sectors while the safety net for the lower class remains relatively fragile.
The long-term implementation of the one-child policy, coupled with soaring housing prices and high childcare costs, has caused a demographic shift that is more rapid and intense than in other developing countries, resulting in significant pressure of 'ageing before becoming wealthy'.
In an environment where resources are highly concentrated and avenues for upward mobility are narrowing, the younger generation is confronted with immense competitive pressure (known as involution), leading to negative responses such as opting out of marriage and parenthood, and withdrawing from competition (often referred to as lying flat).
The one-child policy serves as a quintessential example of an extreme policy.
When viewed through the lens of 'the enforcement of administrative directives' and 'the rapid achievement of a singular population target', the one-child policy (also known as the family planning policy) indeed exemplifies the hallmark of 'extreme administrative efficiency' characteristic of totalitarian regimes. However, when assessed from the standpoint of 'overall social evolution, long-term economic benefits, and risk management', it represents a classic case of 'high costs, low flexibility, and significant long-term repercussions' in social engineering.
Few large countries in the world have managed to forcibly reduce the birth rate of a billion-strong population within just over a decade through sheer national will and robust administrative power. Yet, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has accomplished this feat, showcasing extreme control and execution from central directives down to grassroots village committees and family planning offices. During the implementation of the one-child policy, the CCP authorities linked fertility targets directly to local officials' 'veto power'—which affects their promotions and performance evaluations—treating 'fewer births and better births' as a mandatory political task. This resulted in local governments frequently resorting to extreme violent measures during enforcement. Countless individuals and families have borne the high costs of this policy, including forced abortions, fines for exceeding the birth limit (social upbringing fees), house demolitions, and extreme measures like a hundred days without children, alongside the deep, unhealable trauma experienced by many 'lost only-child families' and a severely skewed birth gender ratio.
Despite serious warning signs in the population structure, the system continued its rigid execution for many years, missing the optimal window for adjustment.
While the one-child policy appeared to save nurturing costs in the 1980s and 1990s (prioritising immediate efficiency), it has effectively shifted the substantial costs associated with ageing, declining birth rates, social security shortfalls, and reduced consumption to the future. The crises we face today, such as 'the elderly dependency ratio surpassing the child dependency ratio' and 'the pension pool running dry,' are the costly interest that must be paid for that extreme administrative undertaking from years past.
The elderly in rural areas have suffered immensely.
Currently, there is a significant disparity in pension benefits between urban and rural areas in China. Urban retirees (under the employees' pension insurance scheme) receive an average monthly pension exceeding 3,000 to 3,500 yuan, while rural elderly individuals (under the urban-rural resident pension insurance scheme) receive a national minimum basic pension of only about 163 yuan per month (with an average net amount of around 200 to 300 yuan). This creates a gap of 10 to 15 times between the two groups. While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) boasts about being 'far ahead' and 'telling the good story of China,' many rural elderly have been trapped in the predicament of having no means of support in their old age for years. This situation represents one of the most severe and overlooked collective tragedies in contemporary China.
The CCP has previously expressed pride in increasing the rural pension by 2 yuan per month, continuously showcasing it as a significant achievement. However, the CCP is fully aware that a pension of just over a hundred yuan per month is insufficient to meet even basic survival needs. Nonetheless, the authorities cannot allow rural elderly to receive pensions on par with those of urban retirees. Consequently, rural elderly individuals have become the most marginalised, impoverished, and pitiable group in society.
What would happen to the financial situation if rural elderly received the same pension as urban elderly?
Currently, there are 180 million people in China receiving pensions for urban and rural residents (specifically, rural pensions). If the pensions for these 180 million rural elderly were raised to the urban average of 3,000 yuan per month, it would require between 6 and 7 trillion yuan annually just to cover their pensions. This figure represents nearly 30% of China's total annual general public budget revenue. Given the current downturn in the real estate market, the high levels of local government debt, and declining tax revenues, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is absolutely unable to undertake such an initiative, nor will it reduce the astronomical welfare expenditures for high-ranking officials to increase rural pensions.
CCP Officials Control 80% of Medical Resources
In China, the extent to which high-ranking officials (including senior officials within the system and retired officials) utilise social welfare expenditures has never been a transparent and publicly disclosed item in the official budget. However, based on past accidental disclosures by officials, academic research, and sociological surveys, it is evident that the proportion of resources consumed by CCP high-ranking officials in the two core welfare areas of medical care and retirement security is alarmingly high.
According to specific data and structural analyses compiled from publicly available research and reports, it is estimated that "80% of medical resources are allocated to CCP officials" in China. Among the social welfare expenditures in China, medical subsidies for officials (including "public medical care" and expenditures from the "Officials Health Bureau") are the most criticised areas by the public.
In 2006, Yin Dakuai, the former Vice Minister of Health, referenced a survey report from the Chinese Academy of Sciences during a public forum, which stated: "80% of the medical expenses invested by the Chinese government are allocated to serve a group primarily consisting of about 8.5 million party and government officials." The report further indicated that there are 2 million officials in national party and government departments who have been on long-term sick leave, with 400,000 of them occupying hospital wards, guesthouses, and resorts for officials on a long-term basis.
Senior officials benefit from the privilege of "full reimbursement with no cap" for their medical expenses. Many high-ranking officials, in the twilight of their lives, depend on costly ventilators, ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), imported speciality medications, and dedicated medical teams to prolong their lives, with individual annual medical costs reaching hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan. This amount is enough to cover the annual pensions of thousands of elderly individuals in rural areas.
Although the authorities later rushed to clarify and deny the data (claiming it was misquoted or inaccurate), this figure quickly ignited considerable controversy within society.
It is clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not incapable of raising pensions for rural elderly, but rather unwilling to do so.
Rural elderly have been exploited by the CCP throughout their lives.
The low income of rural elderly individuals highlights the discriminatory development strategy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the decades, which has favoured urban areas at the expense of rural ones. Many rural elderly and scholars, including representatives from the recent Two Sessions, point out that the current generation of rural elderly in China was born 70-80 years ago, coinciding with the CCP's rise to power. From birth, they were categorised by the CCP as 'agricultural household registration,' effectively marking them as second-class citizens. They endured the three-year Great Famine, toiled in their youth by farming and paying grain taxes, and made significant contributions to the country's industrialisation through voluntary irrigation projects. However, the CCP has consistently failed to allocate budget for social welfare for the rural population, leading to a lifetime of exploitation for this generation of rural elderly, who have been compelled to make 'selfless contributions without any returns.' As they age, their pensions amount to only one-fifteenth of those received by urban elderly, with the CCP treating rural elderly as if they were beggars, leaving them unable to enjoy their later years.
The life trajectory of China's rural elderly exemplifies a survival model of 'second-class leeks.' When we consider their life experiences over time, they indeed represent a rare group in modern history that has 'endured the most extreme costs under the oppressive regime of the CCP from birth to old age.'
As this group of rural elderly, who have faced severe famines, paid public grain throughout their lives, and dared not take a single day off, grow old and fall ill, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) offers them a meagre monthly pension of just over 100 yuan, which fails to meet even their most basic survival needs. Consequently, many individuals in their seventies and eighties continue to stoop in the fields to grow and sell vegetables, scavenge, or work as cleaners. For them, under the CCP's rule, the notion of 'retirement' has never been a reality.
This generation of rural elderly are 'survivors' who have managed to endure with remarkable resilience through repeated historical upheavals and authoritarian crackdowns. While they have laid the essential groundwork for China's industrialisation, urbanisation, and economic transformation, the CCP regime has consistently denied them the fairness and dignity they rightfully deserve. Throughout their lives, the rural elderly in China have been subjected to exploitation and oppression by the CCP.
(Originally published by People News) △
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