Depth of Field
04.02.18
Slow Trains, Shrinking Boomtowns, and Men Who Know Ice
from Yuanjin Photo
In this issue of Depth of Field, we take a ride on one of China’s slowest trains, meet the workers who cut the ice for Harbin’s winter festival, and follow two mentally disabled “sent-down youth” on a rare trip home to visit their families. Also:...
Depth of Field
02.20.18
When You Give a Kid a Camera
from Yuanjin Photo
This dispatch of photojournalism from China cuts across a broad spectrum of society, from film screenings in Beijing for the visually impaired to an acrobatics school 200 miles south, in Puyang, Henan province, and from children in rural Sichuan to...
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10.11.17China's Xi Looks Set to Keep Right-Hand Man on Despite Age
Reuters
Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to retain his right-hand man, the graft-buster Wang Qishan, in a senior position at a key Communist Party Congress this month even though he has reached retirement age, according to a majority of people with...
Depth of Field
12.06.16
From West Africa, the Czech Republic, and Home
from Yuanjin Photo
In this month’s Depth of Field, Chinese photojournalists explore foreign terrain, both beyond China’s borders and within them. Independent photographer Yuyang Liu traveled the open seas to document the lives of Chinese and African workers who fish...
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11.03.16China Slowdown Deepens Looming Pension Crisis
Wall Street Journal
Shortfall most threatens struggling industrial areas, where retirees’ hopes are dimming
Caixin Media
08.02.16
Revival, Resistance for National Pension Push
Bridging the “regional divide” that separates affluent and less affluent areas is a main goal as the central government revives a stalled effort to form a nationwide pension system.The State Council, China’s cabinet, laid the groundwork for a...
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02.29.16China Will Set Plan for Raising Retirement Age Next Year: Media
Reuters
China, whose state pension fund is under pressure to break even, will formalize a plan in 2017 to raise the official retirement age.
Caixin Media
01.26.16
How Serial Killers Terrorized China’s Disorganized Elder Care Industry
The 45-year-old caregiver was calm on the witness stand, but her words were jarring. He Tiandai admitted during her murder trial that she killed a 70-year-old woman she cared for by poisoning her soup with sleeping pills and pesticide, injecting her...
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05.21.14Under Pressure, ‘Naked Official’ Chooses Early Retirement
New York Times
How China is dealing with its longstanding problem of “naked officials”—those who have packed off their family and, often, ill-gotten wealth abroad.
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09.05.13China Seeks Western-Style Care Amid Explosion of Elderly
Bloomberg
In Confucian tradition, children and grandchildren have cared for the elderly, but with almost 200 million over-60 year olds, and a projection that sees that figure more than doubling in the next 40 years, China faces a deluge of infirm elderly who...
Caixin Media
09.14.12
Moneyless Pensions Yield No Gold for the Old
SHENYANG—Morning breezes turn chilly in late August, signaling fall’s approach in the Tiexi factory district.For the unemployed men and women standing on sidewalks between a labor bureau office and a park every day at 6 a.m., the change of seasons...
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07.02.12China’s Looming Pension Crisis Spooks Workers
WSJ: China Real Time Report
China faces a pension crisis as its population ages, and that prospect is starting to alarm Chinese workers who are already struggling to pay for education, healthcare and housing. By the time those people who joined the workforce in the 1980s...