BEIJING/HONG KONG — After three decades selling homemade buns on the streets of the Chinese city of Xian, 67-year-old Hu Dexi would have liked to slow down.
Instead, Hu and his older wife have moved to the edge of Beijing, where they wake at 4 am every day to cook their packed lunch, then commute for more than an hour to a downtown shopping mall, where they each earn 4,000 yuan (S$750) monthly, working 13-hour shifts as cleaners.
The alternative for them and many of the 100 million rural migrants reaching retirement age in China over the next 10 years is to return to their village and live off a small farm and monthly pensions of 123 yuan.
“No one can look after us,” said Hu, still mopping the floor. “I don’t want to be a burden on my two children and our country isn’t giving us a penny.”
The generation that flocked to China’s cities at the end of last century, building the infrastructure and manning the factories that made the country the world’s biggest exporter, now risks a sharp late-life drop in living standards.
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