How Much Does It Cost to Live in a Nursing Home?
The author visited a nursing home in Foshan. Its design is similar to a college dormitory or hotel room, with charges based on beds. Additionally, there’s a one-time entry sponsorship fee of several hundred thousand RMB — broken down monthly, that amounts to 7,000–15,000 RMB per person in pension costs, depending on whether one chooses a shared room or other accommodations. In better-tier cities, these costs would be significantly higher.
A typical one-time sponsorship fee ranges from 100,000 to 200,000 RMB. For a lower-tier bed, monthly charges break down as follows: 2,300 RMB for room fees, 600 RMB for management fees, 700 RMB for nursing care, and 15 RMB per meal. This brings the total stable monthly cost to around 5,000 RMB.
How tough can life get? Even at 30, if you haven’t figured out how to handle unemployment, you’re already expected to start preparing for retirement in a nursing home. It seems that only a civil servant with a monthly pension of over 10,000 RMB can truly enjoy a comfortable retirement (which reinforces why everyone’s so keen on taking the civil service exam).