China’s demographic problems are exacerbated by a trend for young people to leave rural areas in search of greater opportunities in the cities

After turning 60, Wang Gui, a wheat farmer in the rural northwest of China, often found himself short of breath and no longer able to do heavy work.

Doctors admitted him to hospital, where his pulmonary heart disease could be treated, but Mr Wang feared that the medical bills would eat up his family’s meagre savings. They were meant for his grandchildren to go to college and get married — so on a cold night in January 2016, he was found drowned in a vat in the family courtyard; another tragic statistic in the epidemic of rural suicides that has gripped China’s ageing society.

Life for the elderly in China’s big cities poses different problems, including loneliness REUTERS

Demographers have warned that China is facing a population crisis that has been in the making since 1979.

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