Love can be found in the most unexpected places, without going any further; this seems to be happening in Mercadona supermarkets in Spain. And not only that. Age is no obstacle to being intimate in negative areas. In fact, there is a growing phenomenon in Shanghai. Appointments at Ikea for people over 65. The movement has a more complex background.

Tuesdays at Ikea. The New York Times reported that every Tuesday, for some reason no one can explain, the second floor of an Ikea in Shanghai is filled with elderly people. There is a dining room on the second floor, and dozens of elderly people gather there for a very specific purpose: to be seen. In the background, of course, is one of the country’s biggest problems.

300 million. This is the official government-run figure, reflecting the number of current retirees (a figure that has increased by hundreds of millions in a decade). We told you a few weeks ago. China has a problem: its society is aging, and signs of a demographic crisis have been felt for some time, along with a slowing economy. Last year, the country lost its population for the second year in a row. Meanwhile, across the street, the figures showed the lowest birthrate since records began.

All this assumes that the retirement age, which is one of the lowest in the world (60 for men, 55 for women in management jobs and 50 for working-class women), will rise, and there are estimates of another 300 years. It is projected to reach 60 million million in the next decade (the number of people aged 60 and over is said to exceed at least 500 million by mid-century (almost 40% of the total population). This means that there will be four workers for every retiree in 2030, and only two in 2050.

Older singles. Among the increasingly recurring situations among the country’s many older people who no longer work, finding a partner is not insignificant. China has more people aged 65 and over than any other country on the planet, and in the case of Shanghai, more elderly people than any other Chinese city. As we have said, most of these residents stopped working a long time ago, and many are widowed or divorced.

This loneliness is compounded by the current pace of life, the NYT explained. Those with children and/or grandchildren are too busy with their own lives to visit them, and as the cohort of older singles grows, many long to have a partner again, whether it’s a second or third chance at life. Love

Second chances. Where? First on the Internet. Apparently, dating programs have emerged with titles like “Not Too Late for Destiny.” There are chat rooms for single seniors online, live-streaming matchmakers, and dating apps. Of course, the search continues outside the digital world.

From parks to Ikea. Every week in Shanghai, hundreds of older adults return to the same designated corners of public parks and, as we mentioned at the beginning, to an Ikea dining room in the upscale Xuhui district, for a reason no one can explain. The plan: to meet a future spouse.

In this way, it is not unreasonable to come across all kinds of gatherings for the elderly, which are actually social events, where people bring karaoke machines and speakers to the park to dance and sing. Things change on the second floor of the furniture giant, and every Tuesday afternoon, the elderly start coming to Ikea with their thermoses and sit around white plastic tables, sharing stories about their childhoods, with the idea of ​​filling them with free coffee. The incredible thing is that this is not new, it has been happening for years.

Ikea is like Tinder. Cases like that of Ma Guoying, 64, who has been spending a lot of time in Ikea and parks in recent months. Her friend Zhang Xiaolan, 66, has been coming for a decade. “If we stay at home 24 hours a day, our brains will deteriorate,” Ma told the NYT. Divorced and retired years ago, she tells the media that she feels lonely at home.

Like weekend park gatherings, Tuesdays at Ikea tend to attract people between the ages of 60 and 80 looking for what is known in China as “twilight love.” For a few hours, the Swedish furniture retailer is more like a social club. On the store’s second floor, older people gather in the dining room alongside regular shoppers, many even pulling up chairs where friends and acquaintances sit, carrying their own food.

A reform is underway. The situation at Ikea and the elderly gatherings in the park are another symptom of the current situation in the country. In fact, China has a phased retirement plan to address part of the problem. The plan, along with several other important reforms, was issued in a decree three days after the country’s leaders concluded the third China General Assembly, a major political gathering that takes place in Beijing every five years.

It is still a somewhat scattered proposal, aiming to raise the retirement age through the “voluntariness” and “flexibility” of the population. In any case, it is a plan that should not take long, if we pay attention to the State Pension Fund’s forecasts from a few years ago, which predicted that the coffers would be empty by 2035 if there were no changes due to the shrinking workforce.

Image | YouTube, Wind Memories

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