Primary schools and kindergartens in China are being converted into elderly care facilities, as falling birth rates and a shrinking youth population leave classrooms empty.
According to data from the Ministry of Education, primary school admissions and preschool enrolments each fell around 10 per cent in 2025. The total number of educational institutions nationwide declined by over 6 per cent to 440,700 from the year before.
Some of these vacant campuses are being repurposed to serve a demographic that is rapidly expanding as young populations shrink – the elderly. Across the country, local communities are converting classrooms into elderly care centres, nursing homes and community dining halls.
Xiji county in the northwestern Ningxia Hui autonomous region, for instance, plans to transform 65 idle school buildings into rural elderly care service facilities in five years, state media People’s Daily reported in August. There are some 191 idle school buildings across the county’s 19 townships and more are expected over the next few years as schools merge.
“It’s exactly what you would expect as populations change,” said Stuart Gietel-Basten, the associate director of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s Centre for Aging Science.
Gietel-Basten predicted that secondary schools and in some regions even universities might be closed and repurposed as China’s population continues to age.
China recorded just 7.92 million births in 2025, down 17 per cent from 2024, as its overall population shrank for a fourth consecutive year. The national birth rate fell to a record low of 5.63 per 1,000 people, well below a death rate of 8.04 per 1,000 people.
While China can adapt to a shifting age structure at the national level, smaller and sparsely populated areas face a harder adjustment, Gietel-Basten said.
In rural villages and industrial rust-belt towns, the departure of young workers for employment elsewhere has left behind a particularly pronounced demographic decline.
“These places have been hollowed out, not only because of demographic changes, but also because of the lack of economic opportunities,” Gietel-Basten said.
This could lead to a “negative spiral”, with falling local tax revenues making it more difficult to provide public services and economic opportunities, which in turn could drive further migration out of these areas, Gietel-Basten added.
In one video shared on Chinese social media, a former resident revisits his old primary school in rural Jiangxi province, to find that it has been converted into a senior activity centre offering classes and subsidised meals for the elderly.
The village saw only six births last year, the resident said, a stark contrast to the cohort of roughly 80 children when he attended the school. This left an overwhelmingly older population behind as younger generations move away from the village.
While the road ahead is challenging, Gietel-Basten noted that some rural regions in other rapidly ageing societies, such as Japan and Italy, have attempted to reinvent themselves through tourism and relocation incentives.
Similar strategies are emerging in China too. Beyond elderly care, some local communities are converting abandoned schools into rural guest houses in a bid to revitalise the local economy.
For instance, a primary school in Sichuan province’s mountainous Pingwu county, left vacant since 2020, recently reopened in late June as a luxury boutique inn.
The renovations cost 10 million yuan (US$1.49 million), and the inn is set to welcome 10,000 guests a year, according to a local government notice. The guest house is also expected to provide employment for more than 10 residents in the village, while purchasing around 500,000 yuan of agricultural produce from local farmers each year. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
