Because of strict residency laws in China, the number of individuals classified as “migrant workers” numbers in the hundreds of millions. Denied the legal right to inhabit the cities in which they work, they are often left with no choice but to leave their parents and children behind in rural areas as they live on meager wages in makeshift habitations on the outskirts of major cities.
This set of circumstances has brought about a dual tragedy: neglected children, as evidenced in a group suicide of four “left-behind” children in rural Guangxi Province earlier this year, which shocked the Chinese public—and the desperation of the aged, who suffer from illness, hunger, loneliness and depression, as the children who would otherwise look after them toil in the cities.
Chinese demographer Liu Yanwu has studied suicides among the elderly, a phenomenon he says has “reached a terrifying point” in the last six years.
Bottles of Pesticide
Before he downed a bottle of pesticide, the 69-year-old Lin Muwen burned the traditional “afterlife money” for himself in a barbecue, fearing, as fellow villagers would later recount to a state-run youth publication, that his children could not be relied to carry out the custom for him. “This way he got some dignity,” a villager said.
Many villagers told Liu, the demographer, that “none of the elderly die of natural causes” in their community.
That was in 2008, when Liu and a research team conducted fieldwork in Jingshan County, Hubei Province, where, according to a “conservative estimate,” 30 percent of the seniors kill themselves. Liu’s work has been featured in many media in China, including the state-run China Youth Daily, which recently ran a feature about his findings.
Over a 400-day period, Liu, a lecturer at Wuhan University’s sociology department, investigated more than 40 villages across 11 provinces. The elderly have been committing suicde at a sharp rate of increase since 1990, he says.
According to Liu, suicide has become a normal way for senior citizens in impoverished rural areas to end their lives, especially for those suffering from illness.
