Wang Zhenyao, director with Social Welfare & Philanthropy of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. [File Photo: People.com.cn]

Seniors over 80 years old in China will uniformly receive government allowance this year and nursing homes for the aged will spread all over the country's communities, an official with the Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Tuesday.

In China, the elderly people are traditionally cared for by family members, but as more and more people with an only child become old, young couples often face difficulty in supporting their four aged parents.

Wang Zhenyao, department director of social welfare and promotion of charities under the Ministry of Civil Affairs, told the Beijing Times on Tuesday that the system of old age allowance distribution is uneven in China.

Besides the three municipalities of Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin, only Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has regulated the standard that the old people over 80 receive old age allowance. Therefore, this year the Ministry plans to make the government allowance uniform, Wang said.

Wang also said that the Ministry is considering popularizing daycare centers for the aged in the nation's communities.

Meanwhile, the Ministry will begin training professional nursing assistants to meet the demand of ten-million nursing assistants as China currently has only twenty-thousand professional medical orderlies.

China's aged citizens will reach 248-million by 2020 while by 2050 the number will be 437-million, accounting for 30% of the general population, the report said, citing official statistics.