Research On The Interaction Of Government,Market And Society In The Elderly-care Service

Since1999, China has entered the aging society stage. The number of the old is increasing rapidly and occupies a large share of the national population, which shows a significant trend of old-aging, disability and old people living separately. What’s more, many areas of China are approaching "super-aging" stage. The elderly-care service relates to the survival of the old groups, which has become a major issue faced by governments of all levels. Current researches focus mostly on the construction of service system in old city areas, whose residents are all urban population. But in China, the more general situation is that there are significant differences in economical development level in the same administrative regions, as well as the geographical differences and urban-rural differences. So what the local governments are really facing is the difficult tasks:how to bring all kinds of resources into the elderly-care service area and build an effective service system which can benefit all the elder in both urban and rural areas.So far, scholars has come to an agreement on the categories of the elderly-care service. But there is a clear dispute on the question that what the elderly-care service’s nature is. This dispute has resulted in the vague and confusing of governments’ responsibilities in the elderly-care service in turn. Most of the scholars believe that the elderly-care service aims at guaranteeing old people’s survival, which means it should belong to public goods. However, other scholars insist that the elderly-care service is far more than that. It also includes the part of profitable, industrial activities provided fully by the market. Based on the practices in our country, the elderly-care service as public goods and private goods exist simultaneously. Moreover, they always mixed with each other in forms. The Governance Theory and Mixed Public-Private Delivery Theory point out that, compare to the supply of general public goods, the supply of the elderly-care service,which has the multiple attributes, needs more cooperation among the government, the market and the social organizations.After clarifying theories and concepts,this article makes an depth analysis on the elder-care service system of Xihu district in Hangzhou city,which not only has the typical characteristic of both urban and rural areas, larger administrative area,but also retain an obvious differences of economic and geographical conditions. In this case, a demand-oriented elderly-care service system has been built,which is guided by the demand of the old and covers all urban and rural communities. The local government formulates relevant standards,constructs service framework and provides financial support.Communities play as the pivot and carrier of the service system, large number of social organizations are introduced in. Because of the advantage in operation mechanism,enterprises that offers elderly-care services turns out to be an important participants.Multiple forces form a mixed supply model.Based on the case of Xihu district of Hangzhou city, we come to the following basic viewpoints:because of the multiple characters of the elder-care service, as well as the elder’s diverse and complex needs, the local governments have the basic responsibility for the policy setting, service system construction and financial investment. Otherwise, it is impossible to build an effective elder-care service system, which covers both urban and rural areas, reflects equalization, gives consideration to two or more various needs. At the same time, the local governments must pay more attention to the effects of the market and the social organizations, and absorb social and corporate bodies consciously by various forms. Thus, under conditions of limited resources, the government can establish a high-quality, sustainable elder-care service system as soon as possible.We draw the conclusions by building on the theoretical analysis and the orientation study of a single case. So the conclusions are inevitably much more like hypotheses. However, the article reveals at least that, in an effective elderly-care service system, the government, the market and social organizations can play some appropriate roles respectively. What’s more, only in an effective elderly-care service system, can the social and market organizations fully play the different roles. The conclusions have considerable enlightening significance to the Chinese local governments in the construction of elderly-care service system.