New old-age care models are emerging one after another, and special legislation for old-age care is still insufficient
The new pension model can’t just “look beautiful”
□ Our reporter Zhu Ningning
No one can escape birth, old age, sickness and death.
How to age gracefully and with dignity is an inescapable topic.
As a result, many people who are not yet "elderly" have begun to plan for the elderly.
With the advancement of the national strategy to actively respond to the aging of the population, my country's elderly care industry has gradually developed. Some new elderly care models, such as "hug group" elderly care, "travel" elderly care, "residential" elderly care, and "interested" elderly care, have begun to enter the public eye.
It should be noted that the emergence of these new pension models is a new and beneficial attempt to solve the current increasingly serious pension problems.
However, since they have not yet been standardized and scaled up, these new pension models have also exposed many problems.
The reporter recently learned from industry insiders that the relevant departments of the Ministry of Civil Affairs are organizing experts to draft relevant legislation to promote elderly care services.
Some experts called for the establishment of an old-age legal system as soon as possible, standardizing the development of new old-age care models, and at the same time providing comprehensive legal protection for its healthy development.
The rise of new pension models
There was once a short film about seven Japanese grandmothers "holding together" for the elderly. It was very popular on the Internet.
Seven single grandmothers with an average age of 80 years old did not want to grow old alone, but were more afraid of dying alone. They moved into the same apartment building and began to “hug around” for the elderly.
They support each other and often travel together, and their single old life has become poetic.
In the film, the elderly lives of the elderly have become the envy of many netizens.
In the eyes of many people, this is a close to perfect way of old-age care: a few like-minded friends live together to take care of each other, chatting and chatting... everything looks beautiful.
Such new ways of providing for the elderly have slowly appeared in many places in our country.
Just last year, the topic of "5 single sisters' retirement homes" once rushed into the hot search on Weibo.
According to media reports, five single girlfriends, with an average age of over 50 and having known each other for nearly 20 years, bought a house in Yunnan to "hold together" for the elderly.
Many netizens are envious, and hope that they will "hug together" for the elderly in the future.
Several unrelated elderly people form a "new family", perform their duties, live together in partnership, and at the same time rent out the houses they can't live in. The rent can also become a new source of income.
Many people feel that this kind of "hug Tuan" pension with mutual assistance not only reduces the burden of the young people, but also meets the spiritual needs of the elderly.
However, at the same time, "Baotuan" pension does not seem to be as perfect as it seems.
News such as "pro-sisters holding a group for the elderly, they became enemies after 4 years", "5 aunts holding a group for the elderly only two months before they disbanded" and other news frequently appeared in the newspapers.
"Our country is currently aging at a rapid rate, with a large number of elderly people, and the elderly and empty-nest elderly are becoming more and more common. Therefore, it is normal for some new models of elderly care to appear." Secretary-General of the National Aging Law Forum, Beijing Aging Law Research Association Chen Hongzhong pointed out that the biggest common problem in the emerging new old-age care models is that people generally have not considered old-age care from the perspective and height of the rule of law to protect personal rights and property rights. The public's attention to the old-age care models is still specific. In terms of living care of the elderly, many legal issues have arisen from this. The phenomenon of “good to cheat or make money” for the elderly is very common and prominent.
“The lack of effective supervision of home care for the elderly will trigger the continuous emergence of social problems.” Chen Hongzhong pointed out that, including the so-called “hug group” pension, “cohabitation” pension, “mutual assistance” pension, “partner” pension and other new pension models, pension must Standardization, specialization and supervision.
Legislation is decentralized
It should be noted that, after years of development and accumulation, the establishment of the legal system for aging in my country has achieved preliminary results.
In terms of legislation, in addition to the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, the State Council and its ministries and localities have also formulated regulations and a series of other normative documents.
Since the beginning of this century, 11 ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Civil Affairs have jointly promulgated the "Opinions on Accelerating the Socialization of Social Welfare."
After the establishment of the National Working Committee on Aging, a series of policy documents on aging have been formulated and issued.
In 2017, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for the Development of China's Elderly Career Development" to design the top-level system for improving the development level of my country's aging career and improving the elderly care system in the new era.
In November 2019, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "National Plan for Actively Addressing Population Aging in the Medium and Long Term", which promoted active response to population aging as a major national strategy, clarifying the short-term to 2022, mid-term to 2035, and long-term plans. A series of strategic goals looking forward to 2050 are also strategic, comprehensive and guiding documents for my country to actively respond to population aging by the middle of this century.
However, in Chen Hongzhong's view, the frequent promulgation of departmental and local legislation and the continuous promulgation of national policy documents have also made relevant legislation on the elderly present a decentralized feature, which has also caused the lack of systematic and scientific protection of the elderly. .
"The three pillars of old-age security should be coordinated through legislation to encourage the development of private pensions." Chen Hongzhong suggested that the long-term care security system should be implemented through legislative construction, the construction of the long-term care system should be improved, and the quality of care service supervision should be strengthened.
Standardize home-community elderly care service behaviors, and guide the liberation of elderly care concepts.
Promote professional services in the market and develop mutual assistance for the elderly.
Legislation to improve the supervision mechanism
"In the development process of the new elderly care model, problems in property rights, privacy rights, marriage and family will inevitably arise. Therefore, legislation is urgently needed to define the relationship between rights and obligations." Liu Jian, associate professor of the Department of Law, College of Humanities and Development, China Agricultural University It is pointed out that various new pension models have appeared in varying degrees across the country, and the legislation should promptly respond and regulate forward-looking.
In Liu Jian’s view, the adoption of special pension legislation can further improve the basic theories of civil law, especially the theory of marriage and family, support, and guardianship. The rights and obligations of the society can reduce the transaction costs of social pensions, stabilize the relationship between family members and contribute to social stability and harmony.
Zheng Xiang, executive director of the Chinese Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics Law on Aging, and associate professor of Beijing Jiaotong University Law School, believes that from the perspective of the legal system, if the new pension model can be truly implemented at the grassroots level, the first thing is to improve the relevant new models in the legislation. Incentive mechanism for elderly care services.
"It is necessary to pass legislation to improve the relevant rules for dispute resolution and risk prevention in the operation of elderly care institutions, and to form a joint force sharing mechanism and sharing mechanism for the risks of elderly care services among various entities by means of signing retirement service agreements and supporting retirement institutions to purchase accident liability insurance. Response mechanism." Zheng Xiang pointed out that industry support measures should be clarified, require increased investment in elderly care services, and standardized measures in terms of finance, taxes, land, and financing should be formed to encourage and support social forces to provide elderly care services; strengthen elderly care services Team building, standardize the training, use, evaluation and incentive system of senior care service personnel.
At the same time, Zheng Xiang believes that legislation should be adopted to improve the quality supervision mechanism of elderly care services and standardize the comprehensive supervision system of elderly care services.
When regulating the service quality of the new elderly care model, the scope of supervision is extended to property management companies, community elderly service centers, etc., and the supervision methods are upgraded, relying on infrastructure construction such as 5G, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and big data, and High and new technology is used in the supervision technology and measures of elderly care services to improve the efficiency of supervision and protect the legal rights and interests of the elderly.