Meaningful Ageing for China’s Older Adults

Background

The challenges presented by the ageing of China’s population are vast and complex. Not only does ageing have major impacts on labor supply, savings, economic growth and social and family relationships, ageing also necessitates re-imagining social systems—such as healthcare, eldercare, pension and housing—in order to sustainably support the elderly population in ageing well and living a meaningful life in China. The government has made confronting these challenges a national priority, as seen in the 14^th Five-Year Plan, Healthy China 2030, and other high-level policy documents. The prominence of ageing in these policy planning blueprints and the issue’s inclusion in subsequent talks by senior policymakers signify its importance for ensuring sustainable economic and social development into the future.

Objectives

• Advance policy-relevant and practical knowledge that moves China towards a population-based health system, enabling it to better meet the health needs of its ageing population.
• Apply global experience related to at-home and community-based eldercare models to the Chinese context.
• Define and measure the well-being of older adults in China to promote meaningful ageing and improved well-being for this demographic.

Research

A list of ageing-related research projects conducted in collaboration with HCHP partners.

• A Review of Innovative At-home and Community-based Eldercare Models and Their Policy Enablers (Peking University)
• Defining Long-term Care Insurance Benefit Packages (Fudan University)
• Creating a Culturally-appropriate Index for Measuring the Well-being of Older Adults in China and Assessing Data Needs (Wuhan University)
• A Comparison of China’s Integrated Delivery System with International Experience (Peking University)

Dr. Winnie Yip outlined a new project comparing eldercare systems in China and India at the “Symposium on Social Technology for Eldercare in China and Global Aging”.

Publications

• Kleinman, Arthur, Hongtu Chen, Sue E. Levkoff, Ann Forsyth, David E. Bloom, Winnie Yip, Tarun Khanna, Conor J. Walsh, David Perry, Ellen W. Seely, Anne S. Kleinman, Yan Zhang, Yuan Wang, Jun Jing, Tianshu Pan, Ning An, Zhenggang Bai, Jiexiu Wang, Qing Liu, and Fawwaz Habbal. 2021. “Social Technology: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Improving Care for Older Adults.” Frontiers in Public Health 9:729149. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.729149