Chinanews.com, Beijing, July 7 (Reporter Xu Jing Du Yan) "Overview of the Development of the Aging Cause in Beijing in 2" was recently released. The overall situation shows that Beijing's old-age dependency coefficient continues to rise, based on the working-age household registration population aged 2022 to 15 to support the household registration population aged 59 and above, Beijing's old-age dependency coefficient is 60.51%, an increase of 1.3 percentage points over the previous year, which is equivalent to supporting one elderly person for every two household registration laborers.
What is the "old-age dependency factor"? What does a rising coefficient mean? With the total number of elderly people increasing and the aging population deepening, what preparations can people make for their old age?
What is the old age dependency factor?
The dependency coefficient, also known as the social burden coefficient and dependency ratio, is an important demographic and economic indicator, generally expressed as a percentage. It reflects the amount of non-working-age population per 100 working-age population in society as a whole from the perspective of the age composition of the population. Generally, the working age is between 15 and 64 years old, and the age of 14 and over 65 is regarded as the non-working age or dependent age.
The dependency factor can be divided into the old-age dependency factor and the juvenile child dependency factor, and the sum of the two is equal to the total dependency factor. The low total dependency coefficient will create favorable population conditions for economic development.
The calculation formula is:
Total dependency coefficient = [(14 years old and below + 65 years old and above) / 15~64 years old] x 100%;
Old age dependency coefficient = (65 years old and above / 15~64 years old) x 100%;
Child support coefficient = (14 years old and below / 15~64 years old) x 100%.
To a certain extent, the old-age dependency coefficient reflects the degree of aging and the burden of the whole society on the elderly population.
According to the latest data released by Beijing, Beijing's old-age dependency coefficient has continued to rise, with the largest increase in the past decade. In 2022, the old-age dependency coefficient in Beijing will be 15.59%, an increase of 60.51 percentage points over the previous year, calculated by the working-age household registration population aged 1 to 3 to support the household registration population aged 8 and above, and 15.64% based on the working-age household registration population aged 65 to 32 to support the household registration population aged 7 and above, an increase of 2.7 percentage points over the previous year.
Gao Yunxia, vice president of the China Philanthropy Research Institute at Beijing Normal University, said in an interview that the old-age dependency coefficient usually reflects changes in population structure and family structure. Changes in fertility and mortality may affect the dependency factor for old age. Taking Beijing as an example, the dependency coefficient of old age has been rising relatively steadily in recent years.
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China's total population fertility rate has been below the replacement level for a long time (2.1), currently around 1.2, while the fertility intention of women of childbearing age is only 1.8.
Gao Yunxia said that the decline in fertility rate and the acceleration of population aging will lead to a continuous decline in the child-raising coefficient and an increasing old-age dependency coefficient.
"Today's family structure has undergone great changes, the number of pure elderly families may increase, and the number of empty nesters will increase, which also means that the demand for socialized elderly care services will be increasing." She said that the concept of "raising children and preventing aging" and the function of family care will gradually weaken with the occurrence of the above phenomenon, and social elderly care services need to bear more responsibilities.
How to cope with the aging of the population?
The aging of the population has brought many challenges to society, families and other aspects. So, how do we deal with this? In this regard, Gao Yunxia said that at present, all sectors of society are actively responding to the aging of the population, promoting the formation of better pension planning for the elderly from many aspects, and improving the level of pension policy security and the ability of the elderly to protect themselves.
First of all, in terms of policy, China has continuously improved a more fair and sustainable social security system and further improved the social old-age security capacity. For example, Beijing has made efforts to improve the social old-age insurance system, establish and improve the multi-level medical insurance system, improve the social welfare, social assistance, social preferential treatment, and social charity system for the elderly, and accelerate the establishment of a multi-level long-term care security system. In addition, the assistance system for the elderly in extreme poverty provides a comprehensive guarantee for the life of the elderly.
In terms of elderly services, China is promoting the construction of a basic old-age service system. Beijing proposed to improve the multi-level elderly care service system based on home, relying on the community, fully developed institutions, and organically combining medical and elderly care to meet the multi-level and diversified elderly care service needs of the elderly. At the same time, we will improve nursing services with stronger nursing functions such as nursing beds and nursing family care beds, introduce professional teams and technologies, and enhance the service capabilities of elderly care.
Gao Yunxia said that for the "active elderly" under the age of 75, better participation in social activities and value is very helpful for the promotion of the entire physical and mental health. Officials should provide more community services, volunteer services and other projects that the elderly can participate in, while increasing educational opportunities for the elderly, and providing policy and legal guarantees for their re-employment, so that their needs to play social values can be better met and the elderly can be reproductive.
At the same time, the elderly themselves can maintain their health through physical fitness and self-management, and the elderly who are willing to participate in social activities can pay more attention to the release of such policies and resources, increase interaction with the community, their units, and children, and seek suitable participation platforms and opportunities. If elderly care services are needed, it is necessary to liaise more with relevant departments in the community and streets to enjoy safe and guaranteed service projects, so as to achieve the elderly and dependence.
"Young people can work with the elderly to reserve and plan for the elderly." Gao Yunxia said that compared with the elderly, young people have access to more social resources, and while working hard to improve their maintenance ability, they need to be more proactive in accessing policy knowledge on the elderly. For example, understand the preferential policies such as the individual pension system launched last year, consider saving for yourself and your family in advance, improve your financial management ability, and actively do a good job in pension planning. (End)