China Advances Age-Friendly Transformation to Adapt to Aging Population
Population aging is an important trend of social development and a basic national condition of China for a long period to come. Promoting age-friendly transformation across the whole society focuses on matching supply with demand, which requires taking the physiological characteristics, living habits, living environment and consumption capacity of the elderly group as the guide, and realizing precise matching of product supply, service models and transformation standards through multi-party coordination.
As one of the countries with a relatively high degree of population aging in the world, China has the largest number of elderly people, the fastest aging speed and the heaviest task of addressing population aging. By the end of 2025, the number of elderly people aged 60 and above reached 323.38 million, accounting for 23.0% of the total population. It is predicted that around 2035, the number of elderly people aged 60 and above will exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30% of the total population. Promoting age-friendly transformation and building an elderly-friendly society is not only an important measure to practice the concept of active aging and healthy aging, but also a key path to realize a comfortable life for the elderly.
There are significant differences in the elderly care service needs of elderly groups at different age stages and with different health conditions. Younger elderly people have needs for social interaction, cultural entertainment and re-employment; middle-aged and elderly people focus on daily care and health care; and the disabled and dementia elderly need professional long-term care. In addition, there is an obvious gap between the basic elderly care needs of rural elderly and the high-quality elderly care needs of urban elderly.
Population aging is a global issue with profound and long-lasting impacts on human society. Internationally, the matching of supply and demand is the key to the effectiveness of age-friendly transformation. For example, Singapore provides differentiated housing renovation subsidies according to the self-care ability of the elderly, covering the vast majority of elderly families in the country. Germany, one of the earliest countries to implement long-term care insurance, clearly includes the costs required for residential age-friendly transformation into the scope of long-term care insurance support, promoting the sustainable development of age-friendly transformation.
China has achieved positive results in promoting age-friendly transformation across the whole society. Efforts are being made to address existing challenges by focusing on demand-oriented precision. On the demand side, a standardized and dynamic demand investigation mechanism is being established, along with a unified elderly demand assessment and file system, implementing a “one household, one policy, one file” demand customization model.
On the supply side, the government, market and society are coordinating to optimize the structure, quality and layout of transformation supply. The government is strengthening basic guarantees, expanding the coverage of home transformation for elderly people in special difficulties and increasing subsidy standards. High-frequency needs such as elevator installation, ramp transformation, handrail installation and leisure seat setting are focused on to promote age-friendly transformation of public areas in old residential communities.
At the institutional level, policy coordination and institutional support are being strengthened. Relevant policies on age-friendly transformation are improved, and the transformation is integrated into the strategic layout of urban renewal and rural revitalization. A fund sharing mechanism involving government subsidies, enterprise concessions, family contributions and charitable donations is established to expand the sources of transformation funds, guiding the transformation from tangible coverage to effective empowerment.
