Research On The Social Care Service In Hebei Province

With China’s aging population growing rapidly into a new period, the consequent problems are becoming prominent in Hebei Province. According to the data from statistics department, the annual net growth of the population aged 65 or older was 130,000 during The 11 th Five-Year Plan, while the growth jumped into 310,000 during The 12 th Five-Year Plan. It is predicted that the population aged 65 or older will be more than 7.45 million by 2015 in Hebei Province, accounting for about 10% of the total. At the same time, per capita disposable income in Hebei is growing at a comparatively low rate and pension care services are lagging behind the growth of aging population. However, government is not able to provide care services at full capacity. Meanwhile, the problems of more and more the oldest-old and empty nesters make Hebe’s pension care service face unprecedented challenges in such a "getting old before getting rich" situation. Thus, a rapid development of social pension care service is required to lower the tremendous present and future pressures. The reality demonstrates the importance and urgency of developing socialized pension care and strengthening responsive material, technological and institutional policy foundation. It is a must for the government to get the elderly cared, and to fulfill its public service functions and improve citizens’ livelihood. Pension care socialization is of great practical significance for the government to promote the equalization of basic public services, to accelerate the service industry and economic restructuring, to expand domestic demand and increase employment, and to develop a consumer market aimed at the elderly. In this paper, the socialization of pension service is analyzed under the background of aging population. Theories of welfare diversification, New Public Service and Maslow-Need-Hierarchy are used for analysis. Methodologies adopted in this paper are literature research, survey and comparative analysis. A large number of relevant central-government files, Hebei policies and regulations, and studies by other Chinese scholars are collected and discussed. To do the field research, the writer visited institutes of pension service, carried out face-to-face talks and discussions with heads and nurses in these institutes on institute-based pension care and home-based pension care. The purpose is to understand the status quo of pension care in Hebei Province and also citizens’ evaluation on and their need for different pension services. The field research also includes the survey on the operating difficulties and prospects of pension service institutes. Administrative behaviors such as policy supports and supervisions are examined in the paper. The object is to do an overall evaluation of pension service socialization in Hebei including its status quo, operating systems and effects, then to find out the factors which can drive the development of pension service socialization. To boost its development, present problems and their reasons must be analyzed and experiences from developed areas must be learned. The writer also collected and analyzed concerning creative proposals by local NPC deputies so that the old mode of thinking on pension service socialization would be broken and hypothesis would be proposed, thus a boost to the sound development of pension service socialization. A few hypotheses discussed in this paper are believed to act as an inspiration for more creative thoughts on the development of pension service socialization in Hebei Province.