"I'm not sure what we're going to do when my husband and I get old," she said. "We have one son and we just hope he can take care of us. Maybe he'll have his own business. But it's a lot of pressure for one child."
Despite its dazzling economic growth, China is still a low-income country. Its per-capita GDP in 2008 was just over $5,000, one-ninth that of the United States. Only about a third of China's workforce is covered by a pension system; most of those covered are urbanites. Families save copiously, but it's rarely enough to support them through old age. Average life expectancy is 73 years -- up a stunning 32 years since the People's Republic was founded in 1949.
For most Chinese, social security still means relying on extended family. But that bond is being strained by low birthrates and the migration of tens of millions of young people from the country to jobs in far-off manufacturing plants.
When the retirement center at 2 Ruijin Road opened 15 years ago, the thought of packing loved ones off to an old-age facility was still taboo.
"If you sent your parents to a home, people would accuse you of treating them badly," said Li Hong Mei, the center's chief physician. "Parents would just refuse to go."
Today, Li regularly turns the elderly away. The 60-bed center is often filled to capacity.
To ward off social catastrophe, China's central government has pledged to introduce a national pension system. The challenge will be crafting a plan that's generous enough to keep seniors from poverty but doesn't unduly burden the young. Today in China there are 5.4 working-age adults for every elderly person, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. That ratio will plummet to 2.5 by 2030 and to 1.6 by 2050.
"Other than lifting the one-child family policy or allowing immigration, there's not much they can do about demographic realities," said Susan Shirk, a professor at UC San Diego and author of "China: Fragile Superpower."
Introduced in 1979 by China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, China's one-child policy aimed to slow the nation's population growth and boost living standards. The rules apply mainly to married, urban couples, with exemptions for ethnic minorities and rural residents. The policy is estimated to have prevented between 300 million and 400 million births to date.
