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Chinanews, Guangzhou, Nov. 15 – While many old people in China live a lonely life as their adult children are often out at work, it seems that many middle-aged1 people now encounter the same problem – living alone at home. For some, their children may study in a different place and for others, the kids may join the army or work at a far-away place. The middle-aged people have to endure the loneliness and emptiness at home which only the old age group might experience in the past, the Information Daily reported.
With the single-child generation being now at their marriageable age and China's urbanization process quickening, with Chinese people's improved living conditions and people's ideas changing, more and more people tend to live alone in their houses. It is expected that over the next ten years, this will become the main family mode for many old people and even the middle-aged group. The proportion of families that live in such family mode might exceed 90%. In Guangzhou, the number of households in which the middle-aged couples live alone at home is increasing by 15,000 every year. In the past, only the old people might have to live alone. However, it seems that many middle-aged couples in cities suffer from this problem now. Traditionally, when people talked about the “empty family”, they often referred to the seniors group who, having raised all their children, started to grow old and live alone at home. Now, however, many middle-aged couples have only one child. As their child grows up and starts to work, they will live alone even before turning old. So these people might even experience longer period of loneliness, said Chen Xiaomin, director of the Shanghai University of Political Science Women's Studies Center. In China, women of the single-child generation have their first marriage usually at the age of 25, and men, have their first marriage around 27. We presume2 that young couples started to have their own child two years later after marriage. If these young people, mostly born in the 1980s, leave their homes to study or work outside at the age of 18, it will mean that their parents might have to live alone at home even when they are just 45-47 years old. This means that compared with the old people, the middle-aged group have to experience a lonely family life even 15 years before they turn old. If we assume that Chinese people's life expectancy3 is 70 years, this will mean that the middle-aged parents will have to live alone for 25 years, Chen said. In Guangzhou, this reporter found that the lonely life has caused many mental problems to the middle-aged parents, especially the mothers. In the past, most mothers had made great efforts in taking care of their children. Now that the children have left home, the mothers will find that their life is at a loss. Some mothers even develop some psychological diseases after their children left home. When kids leave their homes, it is sure that mothers will suffer more than fathers, psychologists say.
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