GROWING up in a rural family, Wang Fei has five brothers and even today, such a big family is not uncommon in his hometown, an unremarkable village in North China's Shanxi Province.

Wang's parents are two ordinary farmers who have been on the land all their lives. However, what sets them apart is their unremitting devotion to their children's education and the way they have ensured that Wang and his brothers got the chance to go on to receive higher education.

So far, four of their sons have graduated from universities and three are exploring a new life in China's major cities. Only the youngest son is still at university.

"He will finish his college study this summer," said Guan Juan, Wang's wife. "But we are worried that he will not be able to find a job in the city."

According to Wang, his parents have decided that their youngest son ought to stay at home on the farm and take care of them in their old age now that their other four sons have left home.

However, It has not worked out well for all the brothers. "Originally, my youngest brother planned to go to Guangzhou to work but now he has had to find work in a local coal mine," Wang said.

As an otherwise relatively poor province, what has made Shanxi famous is its position as a major coal producing region.

Despite his university degree and like many local villagers, Wang's brother now has to depend on working down a coal mine to make a living and to help care for his aging parents.

Severe challenges

Are Wang's parents to blame for their dependence on their children in their old age? For thousands of years, Chinese kept the tradition of rearing sons so that they could be a help in their parents' old age and a remnant of this tradition can still be found in today's Marriage Law.

Article 21 clearly stipulates: "Parents shall have the duty to bring up and educate their children; children shall have the duty to support and assist their parents."

This has the approval of some experts. "Whether from the viewpoint of social ethics or in theory, to rear a son for protecting someone in their old age should be encouraged," said Zhou Haiwang, a demographer at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

But in reality, it is becoming hard and impractical for young people to fulfill this responsibility.

Today, China's ageing population - those over 60 - is 140 million. By 2020, this will increase to 240 million, 12 per cent of the estimated total population by then. Some 35 years ago, the ratio between the elderly and children in China was 1 to 6; over the next 35 years, the ratio will fall to 2 to 1.

"Compared with developed Western countries, we are entering an ageing society with relatively low social and economic preparedness," Zhou said.

Usually, it took a country about 100 years to adjust its population structure. With the gradual improvement of people's living standards and a growing economy, people would normally be able to decide for themselves whether to have a baby or not.

In China, population policy is under tight government control. Children born between 1950 and 1970 usually had brothers and sisters. But children born after 1979, were the only child in their families, thanks to the implementation of the One-Child Policy that year.

"From a family structure with three or more children to a family structure with only one child, was a sudden change instead of an 'age structure transition' proceeding step by step," Zhou said.

The rapid growth of the ageing population and the One-Child Policy have contributed to the unbalanced population structure and this is posing a severe challenge to the government.

Peng Fei, a girl working in a local newspaper, is the only daughter in her family. She was once haunted by a nightmare, in which, she turned into a snail, with 12 elderly people on her shell. She was always out of breath and had to creep painfully over the ground. Peng said that she would never marry a man from a one-child family.

In the cities, most elderly people have pension insurance to fall back on. In addition, many have at least two children at home to take care of them. So, care of the elderly is not a life-and-death problem in urban families, according to sociologist Gu Jun from Shanghai University.

But the situation in rural areas is far more difficult because a unified pension insurance system has not been established and ever more young rural labourers are swarming into the cities.

Spoiled generation

"We have to make it clear that care of the elderly is a social problem, that is to say, we have to find ways to raise funds for both the urban and rural support system," Gu said.

Through his investigations in local communities, Gu said that what worried him the most was not the care of the elderly itself but the "elderly people's continuing services to their children".

"Many grown-up children still relied on their parents for a living. Even their own children need to be taken care of by their old parents," Gu said. These grown-up children were usually those who had no spirit of enterprise.

Gu said young people living in an industrialized society had the capacity to build a family by their own efforts because their financial burdens were less and they had received a better education.

"However, some parents spoil their children too much, especially children in One-Child families," Gu said. "I am afraid that parents should 'drive' their grown-up children out of the home and force them to be independent."