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recently, the ministry of civil affairs released the "2023 civil affairs development statistical bulletin" which disclosed that by the end of 2023, the number of people aged 60 and above in china will be 296.97 million, accounting for 21.1% of the total population, of which 216.76 million will be aged 65 and above, accounting for 15.4% of the total population. this indicates that my country has officially entered a "moderately aging" society.

according to the united nations standard, when the proportion of the population aged 60 and above exceeds 20% or the proportion of the population aged 65 and above exceeds 14%, the country enters a "moderately aging" society. previously, many authoritative organizations have predicted that my country will enter a "moderately aging" society in 2025. now, the speed of my country's population aging is faster than expected.

the reasons are, firstly, the size of the "nearly elderly" population is large. from 1962 to 1968, my country's second population birth peak since 1949, the birth rate was as high as 40‰, and a total of 190 million people were born in 7 years. now, people in this age group have gradually entered their sixties, which objectively accelerated the aging of the population; secondly, the birth rate has continued to decline in recent years, which has rapidly increased the proportion of the elderly population in the total population.

my country's aging population has other significant characteristics that are different from those in other countries. for example, the base number is very large. in human history, there has never been a country with a population of nearly 300 million elderly people. another example is the very fast growth rate. relevant research shows that it took 115 years for france, 85 years for sweden, 66 years for the united states, and 45 years for the united kingdom to increase the proportion of the elderly population aged 65 and above from 7% to 14%, while it took my country only about 25 years.

in addition, there is not much historical experience to refer to in dealing with aging. most of the countries that have entered an aging society are developed countries, and they were already at a relatively high level of development when they entered an aging society. my country's current per capita national income is relatively low, and its development is unbalanced and insufficient, with large differences between urban and rural areas and regions, which poses more and greater challenges.

the aging problem involves many fields such as politics, economy, culture and social life, and is related to the national economy and people's livelihood and the long-term stability of the country. from a broad perspective, the accelerated aging process directly leads to rapid changes in the labor force structure and a large increase in retirees, which in turn prompts a rapid increase in public expenditures such as medical insurance and pensions, which will inevitably force a series of institutional reforms.

specifically, all aspects of elderly care services should be accelerated, improved, expanded and more efficient. for example, a chain and standardized home and community elderly care service network should be established; medical and health institutions with low bed occupancy rates should be supported to build or renovate medical and elderly care service facilities; and institutions such as nursing homes, community canteens, and senior citizen universities should not only be established, but also run well.

dealing with aging is not just a problem that needs to be solved by a certain industry or department. in society, we should also actively create a social atmosphere of respecting and helping the elderly, and continuously improve the adaptation of public places and infrastructure to the elderly. in particular, in an era where online services are replacing offline services on a large scale, on the one hand, we should retain the necessary offline windows for the elderly, and on the other hand, we should continuously optimize the elderly mode of network applications to help the elderly cross the "digital divide."

of course, the elderly consumer market and the elderly industry will create new demands, form new economic growth points, and bring immeasurable market opportunities. therefore, while the government departments are doing a good job in responding, they should also encourage and guide private capital to enter the field of elderly care services, gather the strength of all sectors of society, and comprehensively build an elderly-friendly society so that all elderly people can have a happy and fulfilling "sunset".