China’s population has begun to age at an accelerating rate, prompting the China National Working Commission on Aging to gather more than 100 local officials for a forum in Beijing on how to respond to the situation on Oct. 31.

In his keynote speech, Wang Jianjun, secretary of the Party group and executive deputy director of the commission, said that population aging is the fundamental reality facing China’s economic and social development in the 21st century.

In academia, scholars shared similar concerns. “The Chinese population is aging at an accelerating pace, bringing increasingly heavy social burdens,” said Wang Guangzhou, a research fellow from the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

According to the Statistical Bulletin for the Development of Social Services in 2015 released by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of Chinese people aged 60 and older had reached 222 million by the end of 2015, accounting for 16.1 percent of the total population.

Ren Yuan, a professor from the Population Research Institute at Fudan University, said that the aging population is growing in a rapid, massive and imbalanced manner, posing huge challenges to social development.

In terms of medical and health services utilization and medical insurance, the medical expenditure per capita of Chinese seniors grew by 15.9 percent on average from 2011 to 2015, said Zhao Yaohui, a professor from the National School of Development at Peking University, who has been taking charge of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) project.

The health conditions of the elderly are a common concern in society. According to a 2015 report by CHARLS, the overall health of those aged 60 and above is worrying. Of the surveyed seniors, 38.5 percent reported disabilities and found it difficult to independently carry out basic daily activities. Around 30 percent suffered from physical pain and about 33 percent had rather serious depressive symptoms.

Chronic diseases have become commonplace. Among the respondents, 53.6 percent experienced high blood pressure and 23.9 percent were diabetics.

The report also shows that 23.8 percent of the surveyed were in need of care. Elderly females were the primary caretakers of elderly males, and sons continued to play the important role of looking after aging parents. Compared to rural areas, daughters played a bigger caretaking role in cities, according to the report.

In terms of living arrangements, offspring are starting to live farther and farther away from their parents, reflecting the effects of the one-child policy on the middle-aged and elderly.

As quality of life continues to improve, the aging population’s expectations for later life are also changing, Wang said, pointing out such groups as “migratory seniors” who spend the winter in South China and avoid summer heat in the north.

Wang attributed such phenomena to high living costs and severe environmental pollution in large cities, stressing the urgent need to develop home-based care services for the aged.

To cope with the imminent “gray society,” it is pressing to build an integrated social security system that covers all residents nationwide, whether they live in rural or urban areas, Ren said.