An elderly couple poses for a photo beside a lake at the Ouyuan Garden in Qingzhou, Weifang, Shandong Province. Photo: Chen Mirong/CSST

China has a large population, which has consistently been a crucial factor to consider in reform. With the demographic shift to negative growth, aging has become a new normal for China’s population and an unavoidable background against which Chinese modernization advances.

Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Chinese government has continuously upgraded its governance model in response to population aging, rolling out pertinent policies in a more holistic, professional fashion involving multiple departments. Policy content has also evolved from guaranteeing senior citizens’ basic livelihoods to supplying diverse elderly care services, and from focusing on aged groups to encouraging the entirety of society to participate.

In 2012, proactively coping with population aging was made a long-term strategic task as the 11th National People’s Congress (NPC) adopted the amended Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly. At the 12th NPC Standing Committee meeting in 2016, the State Council underscored the importance of implementing national strategies to deal with population aging. In 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC National Congress introduced the requested strategies.

In 2021, the National Work Conference on Aging was convened, as the CPC Central Committee and the State Council released the Opinions on Strengthening the Work on the Elderly in the New Era. In 2022, the 20th CPC National Congress emphasized pursuing a proactive national strategy in response to population aging, further evidencing high-level state prioritization and highlighting the contemporary relevance of governing the aging society. The recently concluded Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee stressed refining the policies and mechanisms for developing elderly care programs and industries to actively respond to population aging.

Through these reform measures, China has achieved remarkable results and accumulated rich experience in the governance of an aging society with Chinese characteristics.

‘Walking on two legs’

As the number of people aged 60 and above expanded from 126 million in 2000 to 300 million in 2024, with the level of aging jumping to 20% from 10%, China has entered the “moderate aging” stage. The elderly population is projected to exceed 500 million during 2045–49, accounting for more than 30% of the national total and around 20% of the global aged population.

China not only has the largest elderly population and ages at the fastest pace among countries around the world, but also faces constraints like wide regional disparities and vast geographical scope, shouldering a heavy senior care responsibility. Currently, human society still lacks the experience of governing a society with a super-large aging population and extremely complex regional conditions.

In this context, China mainly “walks on two legs” to improve institutions for governing its aging society: learning extensively from the West while “crossing the river by feeling the stones,” groping the way out on its own.

While summarizing the experience and lessons of existing aging countries, China has integrated its unique national conditions with universal approaches to coping with aging in the international community, continuously adjusting its policies to the development status.

However, as the country gradually enters the high-quality development stage, it is impractical to solve hyper-local problems by drawing upon Western countries’ experience.

At this juncture, a proactive national strategy has been proposed to address the need to manage China’s aging society by enhancing state governance capacities, constructing a continuously renewing governance system, and opening up a path of proactively responding to population aging with Chinese characteristics.

Building Chinese advantages

In the new era, the social and economic formations of China and even the globe have diverged from models applied when developed Western countries’ populations began to age. This has provided unprecedented opportunities for China to approach population aging. China’s basic realities, such as political systems, economic volume, population size, regional differences, cultural traditions, and family ethics, have also offered abundant resources and diverse instruments for innovation in the governance of an aging society.

China has one key institutional advantage, that the CPC and the government exercise overall leadership and coordinate the efforts of all to effectively balance short-term objectives and mid- and long-term development strategies. Leveraging this asset, it has fostered a distinctively Chinese national and social governance paradigm: joint governance featuring shared growth through discussion and collaboration under the CPC leadership.

As such, China is able to handle complex issues concerning the overall situation and long-term development in a holistic, flexible, and effective manner, which is rather difficult for other countries to achieve. This is the solid institutional foundation and a Chinese strength in the pursuit of a proactive national strategy in response to population aging. These advantages have enabled China to fully integrate diverse subjects’ organizational abilities and resources in the governance of its aging society and coordinate short-term objectives and mid- and long-term strategies on the macro level, forming a synergistic, all-around governance network. Moreover, the country has maintained strong flexibility and great innovation potential in such sophisticated issues as administering pensions.

In the meantime, China’s advantages as a major country with regional diversity have set a stage for implementing macro strategies of aging society governance and made policy room for resource allocation. The time-honored culture of providing for, showing filial piety for, and respecting the elderly has constituted a key cornerstone for sustaining Chinese civilization, laying the ethical value basis for “Chinese-style elderly care” and effectively expanding the resource landscape for senior care and the governance of an aging society.

Furthermore, families are still the backbone of Chinese society. With a high sense of intergenerational responsibility, Chinese families can absorb the costs of social transformation while maintaining social stability. This is a unique advantage and resource for coping with population aging. Despite declining birthrates and accelerated aging, policy support for families, rather than individuals, will enable more effective resource flow and avoid misalignment.

The decision made at the fifth plenum of the 19th CPC Central Committee to address issues concerning the elderly and children is of great significance to ensuring and improving the people’s wellbeing and advancing long-term balanced demographic development. In addition, the 14th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development and Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 raises a more explicit requirement—refining the population service system with a focus on the elderly and children. Both policy instructions are prompt and effective responses to enhance family support.

Weaving dense policy web

Through long-term implementation of policies for the aging population, the Chinese government has gradually recognized that policy adjustments to the demographic, senior care, or a certain sector alone are insufficient to cope with population aging across the board. Since the new era began, China has steadily intensified comprehensive policies for senior citizens such as social security, health services, and living condition upgrades.

Particularly, following the fifth plenum of the 19th CPC Central Committee, a “national strategy” has been emphasized to grasp the holistic and process-oriented nature of population aging. The strategy aims to consolidate the risk response system for the aging society while leveraging the strength of political systems, sum up elderly care experience of such a major country as China while inheriting cultural traditions, and comprehensively improve the whole society’s adaptability to aging while promoting ecological progress.

Efforts are being made to balance product supply and sci-tech innovation in the silver economy, service systems for the elderly, and smart senior care, with a view to build a systematic, all-dimensional governance system, and form synergistic effects with development objectives and key areas like deeper economic structural reform, high-quality population development, and urban-rural integration.

The report to the 20th Party congress juxtaposes the imperative to “improve the population development strategy and establish a policy system to boost birth rates” and the plan to “pursue a proactive national strategy in response to population aging.” The third plenum of the 20th CPC Central Committee even designates “improving the systems for supporting population development and providing related services” and “actively responding to population aging” as crucial tasks for further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. These moves have set the tone for aging society governance and geared up for quicker innovative development.

Additionally, China is steadily unleashing new momentum from the silver economy in the process of building a high-standard socialist market economy. A high-standard socialist market economy provides an important guarantee for Chinese modernization, and will pave the way for economic development and wealth accumulation in the aging society. Amid negative demographic growth, China’s elderly population has been expanding. In particular, middle-aged and senior groups hold the largest proportion of wealth. Their immense consumption potential and upgrading philosophy of spending will increase the demand for higher-quality products and services. Their asset features and consumption heterogeneity are not only revolutionizing the original industrial structure and layout but will also create new industries and jobs to boost employment.

The Opinions on Strengthening the Work on the Elderly in the New Era, issued in 2021, called for efforts to actively foster the silver economy. In 2022, the State Council promulgated a guideline to promote the development of national undertakings for the aged and to improve the elderly care service system during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021–25), ordering to vigorously develop the silver economy. The report to the 20th CPC National Congress stresses the need to develop elderly care programs and services. Pension finance was one of the five major sectors emphasized at the Central Financial Work Conference held in late 2023. The Guideline on Developing the Silver Economy to Enhance the Welfare of the Elderly was the first document released by the State Council in 2024. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee further highlighted the importance of developing elderly care industries and the silver economy.

It is easy to see that the Chinese government is strengthening the implementation and practical advancement of support policies. The silver economy is poised to become a vital source which fuels domestic demand and cultivates new drivers of economic development and will provide novel experience for the governance of an aging society worldwide.

Hu Zhan is a professor and deputy director of the Fudan Institute on Ageing.