China | In an aging country, daycares transformed into centers for the elderly

(Taiyuan) Elderly people sway to old-time tunes at a former kindergarten in northern China that has been converted into a retirement center to cope with a rapidly aging population and a birth crisis.

Hundreds of millions of Chinese will enter old age in the coming decades in a country where the birth rate is chronically low, according to official statistics.

Thousands of preschools across the country are closing due to lack of enrollment.

Others are adapting, like this establishment in Shanxi province, which has swapped the giggling of children for the wisdom of a more mature clientele.

“The problem has become particularly evident with the continued decline in the number of children,” director Li Xiuling, 56, told AFP.

“When my daycare was empty, I thought about how to make the best use of it,” she explains.

Founded in 2005, the daycare center welcomed up to 280 children before closing its doors last year.

The place reopened in December under another name, “Impressions de jeunesse”, transforming itself into a leisure centre for retirees.

Located in the provincial capital Taiyuan, the center welcomes around a hundred adults wishing to learn music, dance and other disciplines.

“The idea is very progressive,” says M.^me Li. “They come to fulfill some of their youthful dreams.”

“Becoming young again”

For example, a modeling teacher leads a parade of women with impeccable hair, wearing traditional dresses and pink oiled paper umbrellas.

In another classroom, students sit in a semicircle and beat African drums to accompany socialist songs.

He Ying, 63, says coming to the centre helped her overcome her lack of self-confidence after retirement and make new friends.

“I felt like my cultural life was very impoverished, that there wasn’t much meaning in continuing to live,” she told AFP. “(People here) don’t just wait for old age.”

Nearly 15,000 kindergartens closed in China last year, with enrollment falling by 5.3 million students compared with 2022, government data showed.

In industrial Shanxi, where the population is declining, there were 78,000 more deaths than births last year.

The cultural center still bears witness to its past, with its bunk beds and tiny desks lined up along brightly colored walls.

For Yan Xi, a former kindergarten teacher who now runs classes for retirees, the change has taken some getting used to.

“Little children believe everything they are told, but old people… know what they want,” she sums up.

“I have to think more about how to communicate with them,” the teacher told AFP.

According to local media, several other institutions across China have successfully transitioned from preschool to senior education.

Sun Linzhi, a 56-year-old student, noted that there was “a need for universities for the elderly.”

“I feel like I’ve become young again,” coming to the Taiyuan center, she told AFP.

An economy of the elderly

Last year, China saw a significant increase in its elderly population, with nearly 17 million more people aged 60 and over, according to official statistics.

This age group already represents more than 20% of the population, a proportion that is expected to reach almost a third by 2035, according to the research group Economist Intelligence Unit.

Beijing plans to establish a national elderly care system by 2025, but the country lacks nursing homes and suffers from wide regional disparities.

An important summit meeting is being held this week in Beijing, around President Xi Jinping, and is precisely focused on the economy, which has been slowing down since the outbreak of COVID-19.

The government estimates that products and services for the elderly – from senior-friendly tourism to advanced medical care – could be worth 30 trillion yuan ($4.13 trillion) by 2035.

But it is struggling to revive the plummeting birth rate, a major factor in China’s lopsided demographics.

Li Xiuling, the school principal, says she still misses the days when her school was teeming with unruly children.

“I was very emotionally invested in this school,” she says, pointing to disused bunks and desks preserved as a souvenir.