CSR전략——The Aging Population of China

Since the reform and opening up, China has emerged as the second largest economy in the world, and one of the important growth drivers is the demographic dividend. However, since 1990, China's fertility rate has been lower than the level needed for normal population replacement, and in 2000 it entered an aging society, and is rapidly moving towards a deep aging society. Unlike the aging in developed countries, China's aging is getting old before it gets rich, and China's per capita GDP is still at the world's middle level, and it is not fully prepared in terms of economic capacity, system construction and ideology. An estimated 1.5 million retired snowbirds flock to Hainan, the southern island of China, from China’s frigid northern provinces every winter, and if current trends continue, the migratory pattern is going to expand rapidly. By 2050, 330 million Chinese will be over age 65.
First, Population ageing affects the physical and mental health of older persons. The elderly themselves are a vulnerable group of society, with the continuous growth of age, the immune function of the elderly group will gradually decline, physiological function begins to deteriorate. There will be a variety of common diseases in the elderly group. In addition, due to the change of their own health status and social roles, the elderly are often prone to pessimism, depression, loneliness and anxiety and a series of bad psychology and emotions, and today's family structure model is becoming more and more miniaturized. Children are busy with work and do not take care of the elderly at home, let alone spiritual exchanges, so many elderly people have poor mental state and need social care and understanding.
Second, the aging of the population makes the problem of family pension prominent. Under the comprehensive influence of population policy, the birth rate is declining, the family size is shrinking, and the family structure is becoming smaller and smaller. Most of today's family structure is the traditional "4-2-1" family, that is, four elderly people, husband and wife, and one child, which means that two children have to bear the obligation of supporting four elderly people, thus reducing the generation of children who could have provided for the family's old-age support, which invisibly increases the burden of family members' old-age support. Under the background of urbanization and the pressure of life, young people's time and energy to take care of the elderly are reduced; population flow is accelerating, the number of left-behind and empty-nest elderly in small towns and rural areas is increasing rapidly, the elderly are far away from the daily life circle of young and middle-aged people, and the family pension function exists in name only.
In recent years, with the acceleration of population aging in our country, the supply and payment quota of the elderly population has formed great pressure on the young and middle-aged people with a small proportion of the population, and the creation of social wealth and modernization construction cannot meet the rapid development needs of the elderly population, which leads to a greater contradiction between economic development and population aging, especially in the economically underdeveloped areas. In fact, the degree of aging population is not the decisive factor of social and economic pressure, but the security of aging population must have sufficient economic base and social resources. However, the current situation of our country still does not have sufficient economic base and social conditions, so the aging problem brings tremendous pressure to social and economic development. Relevant scholars predict that China will reach the peak of population aging in the next 40 years, which is also the peak of economic pressure, and social development will be under unprecedented pressure.
What’s more, our culture has respected filial piety since ancient times, “filial piety is the first”. But along with the aggravation of our country’s population aging degree, the only child in support, care for the elderly generally is quite inadequate; in addition, with the modern life rhythm speeding up, people's life pressure gradually increases and thus forms the universal material supreme values, causing the old-age from the past "intentions" gradually changed to "money" mode, the traditional family concept of supporting parents gradually changed to use material and money to support the elderly. The widespread existence of this situation makes the essence of "filial piety" in our traditional culture linked with economic resources, which leads to the gradual distortion and great challenge of "filial piety" culture in our country for 5000 years。
Care for the elderly needs the joint efforts of the government and the whole society, and we need to constantly innovate practical methods and open up new ways. Not only from the macro system, policy model and public finance tilt and other aspects of efforts, but also in the implementation of specific policies to constantly improve the social security, medical and entertainment infrastructure and other aspects. Meanwhile, we should pay more attention to enriching the spiritual and cultural life of the elderly, so that the elderly groups can effectively experience the care of society. This is not only conducive to promoting social stability and the construction of a harmonious socialist society, but also conducive to our early realization of the overall goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way.