Social Stability - 130. page

The United Nations Population Fund and the China National Committee on Aging held a forum on October 22, 2012. A research study discussed at the forum suggested that, in the year 2010, an average of 24.1 percent of China’s seniors were dependent on their pensions for their living expenses; this figure is up 4.5 percent from 2000. Another 40.7 percent of seniors relied mainly on support from their family members. There was also a large gap between the urban and rural regions. Among the seniors living in the city, 66.3 percent relied heavily on their pensions, but only 4.6 percent of seniors were able to rely on their pensions as their major source of income. The study estimated that the senior population will reach 430 million or more, or 30% of the total population, by the year 2050, which means that one out of every three people will be seniors.

Source: Xinhua, October 24, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/local/2012-10/24/c_113470941_2.htm

According to Xinhua News, Chinese graduate school student enrollment continued to grow in 2012. Xinhua reported that the graduate student enrollment was 584,416 this year, which was double the size it was ten years ago. This phenomenon has temporarily eased the employment pressure for undergraduate students. However, the number of graduate students who graduated last year surpassed the number of undergraduate students, indicating that graduate student enrollment exceeded that of undergraduate students three years ago.

Another alarming phenomenon is that the employment rate for graduate students continues to decline. In the past three years, it even dropped below the rate for undergraduate students. Statistics from the Talent Pool Market in Jiangsu Province indicated that the employment rate for graduate student was 86.62 percent compared to 90.3 percent for undergraduates and 94.1 percent for vocational or associate degree students.

Some experts also raised concerns over the quality of the education for graduate school students. A survey from 2008 suggested that 15.7 percent of the college professors oversee 10 or more graduate students while close to one percent have 20 or even 30 students. Meanwhile, the average professor to graduate student ratio in the U.S. is one to only two to three students or a maximum of five to six.

Many experts say that universities and colleges should be discouraged from seeking to expand and should reduce their enrollment size so that the quality of education can be improved.

Source: Xinhua, October 21, 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2012-10/21/c_123849066.htm

A driver died during a traffic incident sparking an incident of social unrest that pitted several thousand people against the authorities in Luzhou, Sichuan. According to Huanqiu, which reprinted the version that the local government publicized, the traffic police directed the driver to move his vehicle, which was illegally parked, but the driver refused. The driver did not feel well and, after taking some medicine, died on site. The Luzhou government “reminded the residents that they should not believe or spread any rumors.”

Xinhua later reported that, during the incident, about a thousand people gathered. Some of them were emotional and attacked police vehicles. They overturned seven vehicles and set five of them on fire. Two were entirely burned as a result. “After patient persuasion, the driver’s relatives voluntarily brought the body to the city funeral home. … During the incident, Public Security took custody of 20 people and no one was injured or died.” The local government hoped the residents would not believe or spread rumors.

[Editor’s note: According to online miniblog posts, the 57-year-old man argued with the police who then pushed and kicked him, leading to his death. This incident occurred within three weeks of the Eighteenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party.]   

Sources:
Huanqiu, October 18, 2012
http://china.huanqiu.com/local/2012-10/3197614.html
Xinhua, October 18, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2012-10/18/c_123838416.htm

The annual Chinese civil service exam will start taking applications on October 15. The number of open positions for this year passed the twenty thousand mark, reaching 20,839, up 16 percent from last year. Of those, 70 percent of the quota will be assigned to college seniors who will graduate in the coming year. It is expected that there will be 6.8 million college graduates in 2013.

The civil service exam started in 1989. The number of applicants grew 10 times from 120,500 in 2003 to 1.4 million in 2010. In 2012, the competition Is strong for the top positions. Four thousand applications were received for the top competitive position. At the same time there are over ten positions that have no applicants.

Source: Xinhua, October 13, 2012
http://news.xinhuanet.com/edu/2012-10/13/c_113361121.htm

China’s Golden Week started on National Day on October 1, commemorating the anniversary of the founding of the PRC on October 1, 1949. Tourists overwhelmingly flooded most of the tourist sites in China. The convergence of visitors at many popular sites resulted in large numbers of tourists being trapped on the road without any access to hotels, food, or rest rooms.

The BBC Chinese website carried a list of comments from the Sina microblog site, which described the scenes involving the explosion of tourists at many tourist sites: A sea of people, slow traffic on highways, piles of trash left behind, and long lines waiting at entrance sites, bathrooms, and restaurants. People who took the trip complained that they felt tired, irritated, and regretful.

Source: BBC, October 4, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/chinese_news/2012/10/121004_china_weibo_crowded_holiday.shtml