The country’s Ministry of Civil Affairs has flagged boosting the development of elderly care services will be one of its key tasks in 2021 after a 7% increase in bed numbers on last year.
There were 254 million people in China aged over 60 at the end of 2019, according to data presented at the conference.
Minister of Civil Affairs Li Jiheng told a national conference that services will be expanded over the next five years including developing home and elderly-care institutions.
A campaign has also been launched to encourage local governments, nursing homes and financial institutions to work with the Ministry to attempt to create more affordable aged care services.
Another area of focus will be to create more jobs in the aged care sector where data has shown 200,000 nursing staff take care of the country’s 2 million elderly people living in 40,000 nursing homes – that’s around one worker for every 10 people.
Compare this to Australia where the ratio is around 1.8 workers for every aged care resident, based on Royal Commission data.
