Distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, 

Good morning. 

It is a pleasure to join you today to discuss the future of China's silver industry and the development of healthcare and nursing services. 

Ageing is often discussed in terms of challenges — 23% of China’s population is 60 years old or older and such % is expected to continue to rise. This places pressure on healthcare systems, pension systems, public financing, and labor markets.  

Yet it is equally important to recognize that ageing is also creating new opportunities.  

It is creating space for innovation in healthcare, nursing, rehabilitation, housing, technology, and finance, as well as generating demand for new products, services and business models. China's silver economy is indeed emerging not only as a social policy priority, but also as a potential new driver of socio-economic development. 

At UNDP China, population ageing has become an increasingly important area of work as we support China's efforts to advance inclusive and sustainable development.  

Over the past year, we have developed a series of knowledge products examining different dimensions of ageing. These include multidimensional vulnerabilities among older persons, the elderly care service system, and financing pathways for the silver economy. 

Together, these pieces explore three closely related questions: 

• First, who remains most vulnerable in an ageing society, and why?  
• Second, how can China's elderly care system better respond to rapidly changing care needs and address compounding vulnerabilities?  
• Third, how can finance and investment support the development of a silver economy that is both economically dynamic and socially inclusive? 

While these studies approach ageing from different perspectives, they point toward a common conclusion.  

Building an inclusive silver economy requires much more than expanding markets. It requires strengthening the care ecosystem that enables older people to live healthy, dignified and productive lives.  

It also requires ensuring that innovation, investment, and service expansion are people-centered and guided by the principle of leaving no one behind. 

Allow me to share some more detailed insights, starting from mapping elderly vulnerabilities. 

For that we used UNDP multidimensional poverty index methodology, applied to China’s 60 + population. The objective is to move beyond income to understand the multiple and overlapping deprivations that elderly may or may not experience, to strengthen evidence-based decision making. 

First – vulnerability in old age extends well beyond monetary poverty. Actually – thanks to China’s socio-economic progress, the incidence of multidimensional poverty has been decreasing and is now low – at 4.93 percent (these are data for 2022) 

However, when estimates are adjusted to take into consideration China’s development status for a more nuanced picture, the MPI incidence rises to 12 percent.  

This broadens the pool of older people who are at risk of falling into deprivation when faced with health shocks, care needs or other risks. 

Second – vulnerabilities are multidimensional in nature.  

Some of the most common deprivations are not necessarily linked to income -- but to nutrition, education and basic living conditions.  

More than one-fifth of older persons experience deprivation related to cooking fuels, while significant shares also face deprivations related to drinking water, nutrition and educational attainment.  

Third – the gender lens is critical for an accurate assessment of the challenges and opportunities. Women tend to live longer than men, but often enter old age with fewer economic resources and greater care burdens accumulated over their life.  

Based on the census data used in the analysis, the average annual income of older women was around 26,500 RMB, compared with 38,000 for older men -- women rely on 30.5% less income than men.  

At the same time, women continue to shoulder the majority of unpaid care responsibilities. As a result, many older women face a double challenge: they are more likely to require care as they age, while also having fewer financial resources to access it.  

Besides gender, other analytical lens include geography (with rural being the weak spot), age (with 80+ being the weak cohort), and family support – or the lack thereof. 

So, from the analysis two points emerge: 

• First, healthy and dignified ageing depends on a much broader set of conditions than income alone. 
• Second, responding to an “aggregate” demand from older consumers may not be sufficient to build an inclusive silver economy. For that, it is also about ensuring that vulnerable groups are not excluded from the benefits of longer healthy life expectancy and economic development. 

And with that — let me switch to China's elderly care service system. 

Older persons are living longer and their needs are becoming more diverse.  

Healthcare accounts for 11 percent of urban elderly household expenditure, reflecting growing demand for medical care, rehabilitation, chronic disease management and nursing services.  

At the same time, significant disparities remain across regions and population groups, and — to my previous point — particularly for rural residents, lower-income households and elderly women. 

On the supply side, China has expanded care services rapidly.  By 2023, the country had more than 40 thousands elderly care institutions and 363 thousands community-based care facilities.  

Yet institutional care remains a relatively small part of the overall care system. By the end of 2023, only 0.9 percent of older persons were receiving care in elderly care institutions and facilities, underscoring the continued importance of strengthening home- and community-based care services.  

In many places, the challenge is no longer simply increasing supply, but ensuring that services are affordable, accessible, of quality and responsive to increasingly diverse demands. 

Perhaps most importantly, our research highlights that healthcare and elderly care can no longer be viewed as separate systems. As chronic diseases become more prevalent and long-term care needs increase, stronger integration between medical services, rehabilitation, nursing care and elderly care will be essential.