Developing the silver economy to improve the welfare of the elderly (Jintai Vision)
It is predicted that around 2035, my country’s population aged 60 and above will exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30% of the total population.
As the aging of our country continues to deepen, the needs of the elderly in terms of life, health, and spirituality are increasing, and the market for serving the elderly is also booming.
Recently, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Opinions on Developing the Silver Economy to Improve the Well-Being of the Elderly" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which aims to accelerate the scale, standardization, clustering, and branding of the silver economy, so that the elderly can share the fruits of development, Enjoy a happy old age.
It is imperative to cultivate new driving forces for economic development and improve the quality of life of the elderly. However, there is still a gap between the various services provided by society and the growing material and spiritual needs of the elderly.
Experts and readers discuss how to take effective measures to bridge these gaps.
We must face up to the significant changes taking place in the consumption needs of the elderly
"The elderly dining table actually requires a stored-value card, and the price is quite expensive. Elderly people in the community are not willing to go to the community canteen to eat." Mr. Liu from Guilin City, Guangxi said that the elderly dining table project implemented by some communities actually outsources operations, and businesses want to More profits are caused by the high price and small quantity of dishes, and the dishes are heavy in oil and salt and are not suitable for the tastes of the elderly. There are even cases where the elderly dining table is suddenly closed after recharging thousands of yuan.
Mr. He, a reader from Shangqiu City, Henan, wrote in a letter that his mother lives alone in the countryside. She just moved into a rural nursing home this year, but encountered many problems: the infrastructure of rural nursing homes is poor, and the rooms where the elderly live are simple; the nursing staff are all nearby Villagers have no professional training; the nursing home is located in a remote location, some distance from the hospital.
"The elderly are not happy living there and say that the nursing home is not as good as home." Mr. He said.
In cities, some nursing homes only focus on basic life care and material care for the elderly, with a single service method and insufficient spiritual care and comfort.
"The nursing homes are well decorated, and they live in a stable place. They arrange physical examinations and care every once in a while, but they always feel empty in their hearts." Sun Xuhua from Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province said that after getting up in the morning, he watches TV and eats alone. At most I can chat with old friends, "This kind of life is too monotonous."
Medical consultation is an unavoidable scene in the lives of the elderly.
With the gradual popularization of smart medical systems, online one-click registration and self-service multi-functional service terminals have brought many conveniences to patients. However, because they do not know how to use the Internet and smart devices, going to the hospital for medical treatment has become a worry for some elderly people.
"Elderly people who don't know how to register with mobile phones can only go to the window and queue up. When there are many people, they have to queue for thirty or forty minutes. Sometimes it's even more troublesome when the doctor on duty is not available." Ms. Song from Chengdu, Sichuan, said that many elderly people would rather go by themselves. They don’t want to go to big hospitals to buy medicines at pharmacies or go to small clinics for medical treatment.
As the main focus of education for the elderly, universities for the elderly play an important role in meeting the learning needs of the elderly and expanding their social participation.
However, due to various factors, universities for the elderly have also experienced problems such as insufficient course supply.
"Don't look at the admissions brochure, which says that this course has 45 new students. In fact, it's basically old students who are renewing their registration. There are very few places left for new students like me, because older universities generally give priority to old students to sign up." Shanghai Aunt Liu pointed to the enrollment brochure and said that she had waited for three years to successfully register for a course.
Traditionally, the elderly market mainly focuses on medical care and elderly care. However, in the digital era, the consumption structure and consumer demand of the elderly population are undergoing significant changes, which provides rare opportunities for related product innovation, service innovation and model innovation.
How to promote the healthy development of elderly care institutions and meet the needs of the elderly for more elderly care services
How to solve the urgent, difficult and anxious problems in elderly care?
Zhang Shengjun, a professor at the School of Government at Beijing Normal University, suggested that based on home-based elderly care, community elderly care service capabilities should be improved through new construction, renovation, leasing, etc., and efforts should be made to develop a two-level elderly care service network of streets, towns, and urban and rural communities, and rely on community development to provide home-based elderly care services. based on diversified elderly care services.
"Some time ago, my children signed up for a family nursing care bed at the Tiancun Community Elderly Care Station. The station arranges for someone to help me go to the hospital every week to get medicine, and regularly arranges for a rehabilitation therapist to come to my home for massages, which has helped me solve many difficulties." Reader from Haidian District, Beijing Ms. Liu said.
Haidian District has implemented a home-based elderly care bed policy since June 2020. As the first batch of home-based elderly care service units, Tiancun Community Elderly Care Station applies for home beds for qualified elderly people and provides them with home-based living ability and living environment assessments. Formulate a reasonable care plan and sign a service agreement, carry out aging-friendly modifications to the homes of the elderly in need, and provide the elderly with the required elderly care services on a regular basis.
In order to further expand home-based elderly care services, the "Opinions" pointed out that elderly care institutions, housekeeping companies, and property service companies are encouraged to carry out door-to-door home care services; cultivate and develop professional elderly care and companionship agencies, support the sharing of resources with elderly care institutions, and expand companionship scenarios.
“Relevant departments should abandon the past all-encompassing, high-cost and inefficient management system and operating mechanism, and follow the development idea of separation of management and operation, with government funding and entrusting social organizations or service groups to handle and operate, and the government is responsible for management and supervision. Inject fresh blood into public elderly care institutions that are already in operation to stimulate their development vitality." Zhang Shengjun suggested exploring the public and private operation model of elderly care institutions.
"Public and private elderly care institutions must be both public welfare and commercial. Relevant departments should allow public and private elderly care institutions to maintain small profits, and at the same time provide policy preferences to improve institutional service capabilities, promote the healthy and rapid development of public and private elderly care institutions, and satisfy more Elderly care service needs of the elderly." Zhang Shengjun said.
In addition to improving the construction and services of elderly care institutions, Huan Pingqing, a professor at the School of Society and Population of Renmin University of China, proposed that we should establish and improve standards and evaluation systems for elderly care services.
"Standards and evaluation systems for elderly care services in various places need to be improved urgently. Currently, some communities and elderly care institutions only focus on material aspects and ignore psychological comfort. In particular, services such as companionship and psychological counseling are relatively lacking. In this way, we can only provide for the elderly. It’s impossible to live happily in old age,” Huan Pingqing said.
How to increase the supply of products and services that match the needs of the elderly
In terms of education for the elderly, Zhang Shengjun believes that education for the elderly and universities for the elderly should not be equated. Education for the elderly is not the only way to go to a university for the elderly.
In order to alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand of university courses for the elderly in a short period of time, we should actively develop online course resources and teaching platforms, and use the "Internet +" model to exert the radiation effect of offline course resources.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" National Aging Care Development and Elderly Care Service System Plan proposes to rely on the Open University of China to prepare a national university for the elderly and build a national education resource sharing and public service platform for the elderly; promote universities for the elderly organized by departments, industry enterprises, and universities. Open schools to the public; support all types of qualified schools to organize senior universities (schools) and participate in senior education.
"We should also support the extension of education for the elderly to the community, and expand the supply of education resources for the elderly by supporting various social forces to organize universities for the elderly. At the same time, we should strengthen the construction of various types of community education and education institutions for the elderly at all levels, and strengthen the construction of education positions for the elderly." Zhang Shengjun explain.
Huan Pingqing believes that from the perspective of demand, the elderly are increasingly pursuing the personalization and convenience of social interaction, and are increasingly concerned about the quality and diversification of consumption. The consumption structure has begun to shift from daily necessities to development-oriented and enjoyment-oriented consumer goods. Shift from product consumption to service consumption.
From a supply perspective, with the help of digital technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and smart manufacturing, the digitalization of industries in the silver economy continues to increase, and many subdivisions are increasing the supply of products and services that match the needs of the elderly.
The popularization of mobile smart terminals has also enabled the elderly to become promoters of innovative consumption scenarios, further amplifying the positive role of the silver economy in promoting consumption upgrades.
For example, the "Leyou Shanghai" mini program has designed an interface for the elderly to solve the problem of small icons and small font sizes that hinder the elderly from obtaining cultural and tourism information; the "Shuiyun Jiangsu" digital travel card will allow online purchase of reserved travel products and services Load it into a personal third-generation social security card to solve the problem that the elderly need to carry multiple cards when going out, and are prone to forgetting, taking less, or bringing the wrong card.
In April 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued relevant documents requiring domestic websites and APPs to speed up the advancement of aging-friendly transformations and solve the obstacles that the elderly people have in "not wanting to use or not knowing how to use" digital technologies.
As of July 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has guided and promoted 1,735 websites and APPs to complete aging-friendly transformations.
“In the future, we need to closely follow the needs of the elderly, collaborate with all parties in multiple dimensions, continue to upgrade intelligent software and hardware systems, build a more convenient and comfortable digital platform for the silver economy, and focus on solving the concerns of the elderly that it is difficult to use or dare not use it, so that The elderly can use digital products and services more equally and safely," said Huan Pingqing.
The "Research on China's Aging Industry Development and Indicator System" released by the China Research Center on Aging predicts that the total consumption of the country's elderly population in 2030 will be 12 trillion to 15.5 trillion yuan.
Looking forward to the development trend of the silver economy, it is currently necessary to comply with the consumption upgrade trend of the elderly, expand product supply, improve quality levels, focus on diversified needs, cultivate potential industries, especially accelerate the development of scale, standardization, clustering, and branding of the silver economy, and cultivate High-precision products and high-quality service model.
Huan Pingqing suggested that as the aging of the population continues to deepen, high-tech products and services such as high-quality health care and smart elderly care will usher in valuable development opportunities. The development potential of the elderly care service market should be fully explored to stimulate various business entities and society. The organization's participation and creative enthusiasm will be able to better meet the multi-level and diverse needs of the elderly and jointly promote the development and growth of the silver economy.
(People’s Daily reporter Shi Yiqi)