By Liu Lihui, Huang Jin & Wang Junli, Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources, DRC

Research Report, No.37, 2021 (Total 6102) 2021-3-8

Abstract: The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee proposed to improve the basic old-age service system in China. Accelerating the training of old-age nursing personnel is not only an inevitable choice to meet the needs of China’s old-age care services, but also a necessary step to implement the national strategy to actively cope with the aging of its population. According to the estimate of the research team, in 2020, the number of disabled elders aged 65 and above in China was 21.27 million, and the number of disabled elders took up to 11.09% of the total elders. According to the “9073” elderly-care model, the demands for elders’ carers in China are estimated to be 3.73 million, 2.57 million and 1.82 million respectively to implement the high, medium and low support schemes, while the actual number of existing elders’ nursing practitioners in China is just 300,000, showing a huge personnel shortage. This report suggested that the government take both the short-term demand and medium- and long-term development into consideration, carry out large-scale training of elders’- carers, continue to optimize the certification education system for social service workers, effectively unblock the path of their career development, steadily raise their salary and incentive level, so as to build an elderly-care force with sufficient professional personnel.

Keywords: disabled elders, elderly-care services, job training, certification education system