The Shortage of Workforce in Chinese Aging Services
Dapeng Ji
USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology
GERO504 Current Issues in Aging Services Management
Instructor: Gregory Bearce and Ronald Schaefer
Resource Specialist: Sylvia Karl
Table of Content
I. Introduction ………………………………………………………… 3
II. Challenges ……………………………………………………………4
The population of people who work in aging service
The professionalism of people working in aging services
The understanding of aging services
Lack of experience
III. Solutions …………………………………………………………… 6
Advocating
Education
Policy-making
Cooperate with other societies
IV. Conclusion …………………………………………………………… 10
Reference ………………………………………………………………… 12
I. Introduction
China has one of the biggest populations in the world and for now, there are over 212 million seniors in China (Eduard, 2015). Combined with the one-child policy and the huge increase of life expectancy, in 2025, there will be over 300 million seniors in the country (Yang, 2016). Facing this serious change in demographics, “who is going to care these people” becomes one of the biggest challenges for China to deal with.
This paper will discuss the challenges that Chinese aging services workforce has in four aspects: 1) the population of workforce in aging services, 2) the professionalism of the people, 3) the understanding of aging services and 4) lack of experience. After that, based on the challenges discussed, this paper will recommend four solutions to solve the problems that China has around the shortage of workforce in aging services. The solutions will be around advocating, education, policy-making and cooperating with other experienced societies.
II. Challenges
The population of people who work in aging service
The shortage of workforce in aging services in China is much more sever than what we expected. At the end of 2014, there were 212 million seniors living in China and by the end of 2025, the number will increase to 300 million (Xu, 2017). According to the senior population increasing status, research shows that Chinese aging services requires 10 million people to enter the workforce, however, the fact is that there are only 1 million people working in aging services and among all people working in this field, only 2% have had the professional training (Luo, 2016). Furthermore, because of the one-child policy in China, the young labor force is decreasing at the same time. Only in 2014, the labor force in China has decreased by 3.17 million (2015). The decreasing of the general workforce will influence the workforce in aging services as well.
The professionalism of people working in aging services
Not only the amount of people who are working in this field is nothing near enough, but also the professionalism of them is another serious problem. For now, people who are working in aging services field have no professional experience or education. Most of these people who are working in this field are ones who come from rural areas at their age of 50s or 60s (Luo, 2016). The average education of people from rural areas is only at middle school level or an even lower level. They are not even able to get the basic training of aging services. Even though there are about 150 colleges that have major focusing on aging services in China, the total amount of students that are actually studying gerontology are less than 5,000 (Lin, 2016).
From what I can see, there are two reasons leading to the problem that the professionalism in aging services is too negative. The first one is that the salary and benefits in the industry are too low. Most people working in this field are free-lancers; therefore, they cannot get the social security or medical insurance. At the same time, the salary is so low that people who have experience and skills can easily earn much more money than being a nurse or caregiver. The second one is that the restrictions in aging services have not been developed yet in China. We cannot deny that there are a lot of responsibilities and risks in this field of work since the customers are seniors and they are really vulnerable. People who are working in this field cannot be protected with the restrictions or policies China has right now, if there is emergency happening during the work.
The understanding of aging services
The understanding of aging services is a two-way understanding. The first one is the understanding of aging services from the people who are working in this field. For now, these employees in this industry are working for quick money (2016), which means that they do not need a higher educational degree or long-term training. They work, they get paid and they go on to another customer. Although the salary is low, this is the easiest way to get paid for them, which will lead to a problem that the quality of the service is not guaranteed. From what I have learned and noticed, only if you understand the meaning of aging services and you really love this field, can you do a great job and provide high quality services to your customer.
The other way of understanding is from the public. For now, the public in China still cannot understand the value and the meaning of aging services. They are afraid of being taken care of by other people or moving into the community. Meanwhile, people do not respect this field or trust the people who provide the services. Chinese people are still having trouble distinguishing caregivers and gerontologists (Anonymous, 2017), which also cause the high turnover rate in the field of aging services in the country.
Lack of experience
For thousands of years, Chinese senior care has been influenced by the Confucius norm of filial piety, which is regarded as the Chinese social security and Medicare (Feng, Liu, Guan & Mor, 2012). Not until 1999, the aging service issue started to catch the attention of the government and a series of policies have been set up (2012).
From what we can see, the aging service system is still very immature and under developed. There is no experience we can learn from, which makes the situation so difficult when we face the problem of the shortage of workforce in aging services.
III. Solutions
Based on the challenges I found, I think there are four kinds of solutions that can be helpful.
Advocating
Since there are some misunderstandings of aging services and Chinese younger students do not want to choose aging services as a career, we need to change the way people think about this field by advocating aging services. For example, we need to let the public understand that aging services is meaningful to the society. Except for the financial part, there are so many advantages that we can receive from aging services, and we can feel satisfied when we take care of our older generation. From my point of view, doing something meaningful is much more important than just making a lot of money.
Furthermore, we need to advocate the public to know that we need to show our respect to those who are working in this field. They are the ones who take care of our society and make China a better place.
At the same time, the social media can contribute to help with the situation, too. When we search on-line or watch TV, most of the news that talk about aging services are showing people that aging services agencies are under developed, or seniors can get hurt if they move into a community. We need to change this, and let the public know that there are so many advantages in the work of aging services.
Education
Education is another important way to solve the shortage of workforce in aging service in China.
Since most people that are working in aging services field are females from rural area without training, which is also the reason that the turnover rate is so high in this field (Zhao, 2014), we need to give them the opportunity to be educated and trained, so that we can improve the professionalism of the workforce in aging services as well. Furthermore, when they become more professional and skilled, the quality of the service will be improved, which will make the public trust them more and be willing to respect the service they provide. At the same time, they will have a better chance to get a higher salary. In these ways, we can decrease the turnover rate in aging services as well.
Meanwhile, China needs to put more resources into the aging services education. Even though there are about 150 schools having related majors (2016), most of them are lower level educational institutes. There should be higher rank universities getting involved in this field of education. For instance, Qsinghua University and University of Pennsylvania will cooperate with each other to set up a graduate program focusing on aging services management (Liu, 2016). I believe, with more programs like this, we can deliver more professional experts into the market and make up the shortage of workforce in Chinese aging services.
Policy-making
Policy-making is one of the most important aspects to help deal with the challenges. First of all, like what we have discussed above, the shortage of workforce comes from the low salary and lack of benefits. People who work in aging services do not have the social security or the medical insurance like other people do.
Moreover, research shows that the average monthly wage for an aging services provider is only around 3,000RMB (2016). Compared with the amount of work and the risk they need to take, most people will consider the salary is not enough. Thus, if the government can set up policy that would provide more financial security for them, I believe there will be more people willing to be a part of aging services.
At the same time, there will be some risks and responsibilities during the work of aging services. People work in this field in China always worried that they would be responsible or get sued if some emergencies happen during the time they provide service. This kind of scruple also comes from the lack of policy and restriction. If we can make the liability clear between aging services providers and the customers, people will have fewer worries and be more willing to take aging services as a career option.
At last, the “Chinese ministry of civil affairs report of 2016” indicated that most people who want to take part in the aging services come from low-income areas (Zhang, 2016). Therefore, I believe if the Chinese government can put up some policies about cutting the tuition fees of people who want to study about aging services or establish some scholarship programs, there will be more people coming to contribute in this field.
Cooperate with other societies
From what I have mentioned before, Chinese aging services system is pretty young and under developed. To overcome this disadvantage, we have to learn and cooperate with other countries and societies. Countries like America and Japan, they have been developing their aging services system for a long time. Thus, there will be a lot of experience we can learn from and a lot of mistakes to be avoided. At the same time, since China has a really huge market, a lot of United States’ companies are seeking to cooperate with Chinese companies or the government.
What is more, after the cooperation set up, China can send our experts go abroad to observe and China can hire or attract people with experience from other countries coming to China to help as well. I believe this will help China to develop their aging service system more quickly and solve their challenges in workforce of aging services.
IV. Conclusion
From what I have discussed above we can see that the shortage of workforce in China is serious. The reasons that make the situation of China so challengeable are from different aspects. However, from my point of view, there are several recommendations that I made to help with overcoming the difficulties.
Advocating aging services field by the government and social media can help the public understand the meaning of aging services, make people feel that this field of work deserves respect and attract more people of younger generation to work in this field.
Educating can help not only the people who are already in this field to get a better career future but also improve the quality of service. At the same time, if we can train more management experts in this field, the aging services in China can get faster and better development.
The insecurity of financial issue and legal issue is one of the main problems that China has due to the shortage of workforce. The government should set up developed policies to protect not only the financial security of the people who are working in this field, but also the legal security. In this way, they can work in this field without scruple. At the same time, the policy of cutting out the tuition fee of students who want to study aging services and scholarship program can attract more people to learn and work in aging services.
At last, learning from some countries and societies with more experience can give China an opportunity to speed up their development of aging services. At the same time, cooperating with different countries can avoid mistakes that may be harmful to the field. I believe the huge market of China can help to thrive the aging services industry around the world as well.
Reference
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