The Research Of China’s Present Urban Social Old-age Service System

There is an obvious increasing trend of aging population. The elderly people, with the growth of the absolute number, have taken a big percentage. There are more and more "empty nesters", disabled, half-disabled elders, and "child loss bearers", which means the endowment difficult group is rising. According to the result of the sixth population census, the aging population in our country has reached178million, accounting for13.26%of the total population proportion. Social endowment burden is added. Under the influence of urban and rural dual economic system, China’s social old-age service system also has obvious gap between urban and rural areas. Compared with the rural endowment led by the natural economy, urban endowment is more complex. In rural areas, the elderly people at least have some farmland as their basic guarantee. While in urban areas, the basic old-age service system is their last straw. The service requests of elderly people in cities are variable and complicated:people of different sex, the different age groups, different income levels, their requests differences are obvious. Thus it is significant to study the old-age service system based on the demand of the elderly.This thesis will analyze China’s present urban social old-age service system mainly from two perspectives:the satisfaction and the supply capacity of the old-age service system, in order to improve this system according to old people’s needs, the conflict between supply and demand, urban old people’practical endowment condition. Chapter one introduces this thesis’s significance, methodologies (including literature research, qualitative analyses and questionnaires) and the current research situation at home and abroad. Also the research achievements at home and abroad are summarized because previous studies are important references. Based on the theories of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, balance, Welfare pluralism and public product, literature research, qualitative and quantitative analyses and questionnaire methods are employed in this thesis. Taking history as a mirror, the paper gives a brief introduction on the history of China’s urban social old-age service system. Divided by the year1978, two stages of the urban social old-age service system come into being:the period from the founding of new People’s Republic of China to Reform and Opening up and after Reform and Opening up till today. The main idea is to analyze the needs of the old-aged service, to find the contractions between supply and demand, to analyze the causes of the problems from government, family and society these three perspectives and finally the solutions and improvement measures are put forward. Through the analyses of the questionnaires results, this paper summarizes the basic conditions of the old people and their endowment needs with the help of charts. Through pooled analysis, explains the main problem of the old-aged service existing today is the unbalanced supply and demand. At the same time, some aspects of the supply and demand problem are listed, and the causes are also probed. In view of all the causes of the problems, this paper gives the solutions of the contraction between supply and demand from three aspects:to strengthen government supply, perfect family and institution endowment service system. This will improve the urban social old-age service system and better serve the old people. To strengthen the government supply, the government should increase financial investment, provide more policy guidance for family and institution endowment, perfect laws and regulations system and enhance the assessment and supervision level;to perfect the family endowment, regulating the responsibilities among family members and strengthening the community service to promote family endowment service quality are the two measures;in the aspect of institution endowment, private capital engagement should be encouraged to make up the institution shortage, the internal management of the institution endowment should be strengthened to enhance service quality and civil servants training should be better regulated to enhance the professional qualities. The perfection of the urban social old-age service system calls for all aspects of efforts. The old-aged service supply should not merely depends on government increasing investment, a harmonious and sustainable urban social old-age service system must be set up to ensure the satisfaction of the multiple endowment service needs of the old people in cities.