Socialized care services for the aged population: System construction and support measures

Given the aging society, an increase in social demand, information- and communication technology-driven culture, and government policy support emerges to enable the development of the socialized care services system for the aged (SCSSA). The development of the SCSSA would be a significant step toward addressing China’s aging population. However, the construction of the SCSSA challenges the theories and methods of traditional elderly care service system construction. Specifically, the implementation path for such elderly care service policies is unclear, the necessary technological support is insufficient, and the mechanism for integrating intelligent information technology remains underexplored. Thus, this paper focuses on the needs of the elderly, grounded in the context of the changing elderly care service policies in China, and proposes a research paradigm that integrates system construction and support measure embedding. We then construct the original SCSSA, which includes “material + spirit + medical treatment + healthcare” and propose a method of optimization and iteration. Finally, we build the research framework of systematic support measures from the perspectives of policy reconstruction, institutional embeddedness, and technical support. Our work provides theoretical support and practical guidance for the construction and dynamic optimization of the SCSSA, thus making a significant contribution that will help China effectively cope with its aging society.