STOCK MARKET WATCH - Thursday, 5 January 2012

[Ghost Dog]

21. China No Country for Old Men as Government Battles ‘Demographic Tsunami’

... The latest government census shows 178 million Chinese were over 60 in 2009. That figure could reach 437 million -- one third of the population -- by 2050, the United Nations forecasts. While the elderly were looked after in the past by their children, urbanization and the nation’s one-child policy have eroded the tradition of family care.

“It’s a demographic tsunami,” says Joseph J. Christian, a fellow at the Asia Center at the Harvard Kennedy School, and former DLA Piper partner in Hong Kong, who specializes in senior housing issues in China. “The whole multi­generational housing model has disappeared.”

China’s challenge is similar to that faced by Japan in the 1990s, with one essential difference: China will grow old before it gets rich. With tens of millions of parents left to fend for themselves, the government set up a National Committee on Aging to try to devise a comprehensive strategy (CHGE7) to ensure their health and comfort.

The latest five-year plan still gives families primary responsibility for elderly care. Even so, the government is looking to the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and local communities for a more sustainable solution. So far only a handful of companies provide service comparable to the West...

... China’s economic growth has given it the financial muscle to provide for the growing number of elderly and the government has been rapidly introducing pensions and health-care plans for farmers and city-dwellers, said Li Zhihong, research department director at the National Committee on Aging...

/... http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-04/china-no-country-for-old-men-as-demographic-tsunami-begins.html

Seems there's certainly room for a service-sector boom in China. Assuming planning facilitates that, the demand is there.