The next five years are an important "window period", do this well

Population aging is currently one of the biggest challenges facing Chinese society. Since the end of the 20th century, China's aging population has accelerated its evolution. According to the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Optimizing the Birth Policy to Promote Long term Balanced Population Development, it is expected that China's population will enter a stage of moderate aging during the 14th Five Year Plan period and a stage of severe aging around 2035.

How to effectively promote the national strategy of "actively responding to population aging" established by the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is one of the key work priorities of the Party and the government in the coming period. In recent years, relevant departments have introduced a series of policies and achieved positive results. However, the institutional construction to address population aging involves adjusting the interests of the entire society, and there is still room for improvement in the effectiveness level, scope, and intensity of existing policies. We must accelerate the institutional construction to address population aging, and form a systematic institutional supply through the coordination of legal norms at different levels.

Guided by meeting the diverse needs of the elderly

Supply comes from demand. Over the past forty years of reform and opening up, China's population structure has undergone significant and profound changes. The first meeting of the 20th Central Committee of Finance and Economics pointed out that the current population development in China is showing a trend of fewer children, aging, and regional population growth and decline differentiation. At the same time, the living conditions and needs of the elderly have also changed. They hope to achieve self leadership in their later years and expect the country to provide more diverse public services, not only providing "care for the elderly" and "medical care for the elderly", but also "education for the elderly", "happiness for the elderly", and "action for the elderly". In addition to a sustainable basic pension and medical insurance system that covers the entire population, the majority of elderly people also hope to achieve a higher level of life vision. In the digital age, elderly people hope that national laws can protect them from crossing the "digital divide" and enjoying digital rights; Some young and elderly people are eager to find employment again, and they also call for a more complete institutional system to safeguard the "silver haired employment market".

In short, the needs of the elderly in the new era have also reached a new level. We should actively build and improve the institutional system to address the aging population, with meeting the diverse needs of the elderly as an important guide.

Based on the legalization of safeguarding the rights and interests of the elderly

The rule of law is an important foundation for a country's governance system and governance capacity. The reason why the rule of law has become a common principle of governance followed by modern civilized countries is because it has advantages and characteristics such as high stability, predictability, and standardization. Rights protection is the most prominent foundation of the rule of law. To actively respond to the aging population, the first and foremost thing is to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the elderly, among which legal protection is the most powerful and stable means. The legalization of the protection of the rights and interests of the elderly should be based on the principles of "biased protection" and "due process", and the rule of law should be implemented in various legislative, law enforcement, and judicial processes related to the rights and interests of the elderly.

The legalization of the protection of the rights and interests of the elderly is difficult to achieve solely through one or two laws. It requires specialized protection from laws such as the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, the Labor Law, and the Social Insurance Law, as well as the introduction of other legal departments such as civil law, tax law, and financial law. The recently passed Law of the People's Republic of China on the Construction of Accessible Environment considers the protection of the rights of the elderly in multiple provisions, which is an important example of the legalization of the protection of the rights and interests of the elderly.

Institutional construction should focus on both "stacking beams and columns" and "adding bricks and tiles" simultaneously

The legal system for addressing population aging should be led by the Constitution, with the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly as the backbone, supported mainly by the Civil Code, Labor Law, Employment Promotion Law, etc., and supplemented by systems such as personal information protection, protection of digital rights of the elderly, and construction of an elderly friendly environment. Therefore, the construction of the system should be based on a comprehensive review of the legal and regulatory documents related to the elderly, enriching and improving the main laws, finely carving out the auxiliary support system, and combining "stacking beams and pillars" and "adding bricks and tiles" to complete the systematic construction of the system.

1、 Improve top-level design through legislation. Important matters related to major interest adjustments and institutional construction need to be established or improved through legislation or the formulation of administrative regulations by the National People's Congress and the State Council, in a top-level design manner. There are mainly two types, one is the "legislative gap" issues, such as the adjustment of labor relations and social security for "silver age employment" that have a significant impact on the rights and obligations of the elderly, and the protection of digital rights for the elderly; The second issue is "legal reservation", which refers to the matters that must be determined through legislation by the National People's Congress as stipulated in the Legislative Law. For example, in order to provide reasonable care for the elderly population when participating in litigation activities, it is considered to establish a specialized litigation procedure for the elderly by imitating the procedures of juvenile litigation.

2、 To avoid the relevant clauses being meaningless. The rights, obligations, and responsibilities established by law must be refined through specific policies and mechanisms, otherwise they may become meaningless. In reality, although some laws grant rights to the elderly, they are difficult to implement due to various reasons. For example, the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly stipulates that "family members living separately from the elderly should frequently visit or greet them.". The entry of the "often go home and see" clause into the law is not enough, and it is urgent to implement detailed rules or legal interpretations to further implement it. For example, the Civil Code established an "adult guardianship" system aimed at safeguarding the rights of elderly people with disabilities and dementia. According to this system, individuals or organizations willing to serve as guardians can take on the role of elderly people with disabilities and dementia, but this should be agreed upon by the village neighborhood committee or civil affairs department. In the specific implementation, the standards and procedures that the village neighborhood committee should use to determine whether to agree or not, and whether there are other safeguard or relief measures, among many other details, need to be further clarified.

3、 Encourage local governments to try first. Provinces and cities with conditions should be encouraged to boldly explore and experiment in actively responding to aging, and select regions with distinctive and representative characteristics to carry out comprehensive innovation pilot projects in response to population aging, providing useful experience for national institutional innovation. The implementation of the "long-term care insurance" system nationwide after the pilot program in Shanghai is a successful precedent. In the future, how to improve the coordinated medical and elderly care model among communities, families, and institutions, and how to further coordinate resources, improve levels, and improve quality through the construction of smart cities, to create a new type of elderly care service model 2.0 version on the basis of existing "embedded" and "mutual assistance", are all "must answer questions" for China to actively respond to population aging.

The next five years are an important window period for China to actively respond to the aging population. As one of the cities with the highest degree of aging population in China, Shanghai has achieved remarkable results in the layout of tertiary elderly care institutions, deepening the integration of medical and elderly care, and improving the supply capacity of elderly services in recent years. At the same time, it also faces challenges such as insufficient matching between elderly health and medical and elderly care services, and the lack of an integrated elderly health service chain. Shanghai should fully leverage the "trial and error right" granted by the law, explore and open up replicable and promotable model paths on the track of the rule of law, and provide effective systematic institutional supply for promoting the implementation of the national strategy of actively responding to population aging.