国庆长假的第一天，上午九点，46岁的赵希虹伸了个懒腰正式起床，丈夫朱震川已经在厨房准备好了早饭。这又是一个只有两人的长假。这套四室两厅大约有两百平方米的复式公寓，自从儿子3年前去了国外念书，就只有这对中年夫妇两人居住了。
在刚过去不久的中秋、国庆长假中，“中年空巢”家庭里总是弥漫着一股淡淡的离愁。
伴随着中国第一代独生子女走出家庭，以往出现在老年人群的“空巢现象”正呈现“中年化”趋势，被称之为“中年空巢”现象。有专家指出，随着现代社会城市化的不断推进，家庭结构不断向“三口之家”的模式发展，“中年空巢”家庭将成为社会的一个重要组成部分，而上海将是最先的见证者。 Continue reading
(China Daily)By Duan Yan 2010-10-14
The 4-2-1 structure poses challenges to providing care for the elderly. Duan Yan in Beijing reports.
After another national holiday spent squeezing onto cramped trains to visit relatives, Li Wenbo and his wife Jia Xuan had the luxury of leaving their 2-year-old daughter with Li’s parents this week.
Like many modern couples, being able to get some respite from the daily pressures of parenthood is the best thing about the so-called 4-2-1 family.
The reverse-pyramid dynamic – four grandparents, two parents and one child – is rapidly becoming the new norm in Chinese cities, largely as a result of three decades of the country’s family planning policy, which resulted in most couples having only one child. Continue reading
Global aging is no longer a distant challenge looming over the horizon.
The unchecked growth in pension expenditures in some European countries is a major factor in the debt crisis that shook the euro zone this year.
In the United States, first-wave baby boomers will become eligible for full Social Security and Medicare benefits next year, initiating a two-decade cost spiral in which government benefit spending is projected to double as a share of G.D.P.
In China, where the rising old-age dependency burden still largely falls on families, the onrushing age wave is giving rise to the “4-2-1 problem” — one child caring for two parents and four grandparents. Continue reading
