China, Aging and Health

Abstract

Academics from across the world are increasingly concerned about the rising numbers of older people in their society. There are worries about the inadequacy of pension funds, of growing pressures on health systems, and on the inability of shrinking numbers of younger people to carry the burden of their elders. This article focuses on such health issues in China, where the older people have become a rapidly expanding proportion of the population. While resources do need to be targeted on the vulnerable older people, the presumption that older people as a whole are an economic and health burden must be questioned. This is an agist view that needs to be combated by locating how bio-medical views on aging seep into health policy spaces in China that position negative perceptions of aging as both individual and populational problems. The article then moves to observe the implications of bio-medicine for older people in China in terms of "vulnerable" aging but deconstruct such "fixed" explanations by juxtaposing active aging as key narrative that epitomizes "declining to decline" as espoused by health sciences.