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Research on the Coordination of State and Family Responsibilities in the Provision of Elderly Care Services from the Perspective of Social Policy

Author(s)

Song Yu*

Affiliation(s)

School of Political Science and Law, University of Jinan, Jinan, Shandong, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

With the continuous acceleration of population aging in China, the supply of elderly care services, which undertakes the basic guarantee function of people's livelihood, has gradually become a key and urgent issue that needs to be solved in the field of social policy research and social governance. The reasonable division of responsibilities and effective cooperative coordination between the state and families in elderly care work can directly affect the daily life quality of all elderly groups, while it also exerts a far-reaching influence on the long-term harmony and stable operation of the whole society that supports national social development. Social welfare services in China during the transition period require multi-party participation to cope with the weakening of traditional family support functions.[1]The policy system for elderly care services should be constructed within the framework of "state-society-family" relations, clarifying the roles of each actor to achieve collaborative governance.[2]Taking the daily elderly care practices and typical innovation cases of Shandong Province as the core research object, this paper mainly relies on the mature welfare pluralism theory and combines the basic connotation of responsibility division theory to conduct systematic and targeted research. This paper analyzes and sorts out the practical responsibility boundaries of the state and families in the current elderly care service field, summarizes the various practical dilemmas that the two main bodies face in the process of performing their social duties, and explores feasible coordination and improvement strategies which are suitable for local economic and social development. The research results show that China's current elderly care service supply system still has many obvious shortcomings in actual operation, which include unclear definition and positioning of national elderly care responsibilities, continuous weakening of family elderly care functions that is accompanied by increasing care pressure, and the lack of complete and effective long-term coordination mechanisms between the state and families. Under the general background that national population structure keeps changing and traditional family living modes are gradually transforming, it is very necessary to build a scientific and standardized responsibility coordination system with the characteristics of "state-led guarantee, family-based support and multi-subject participation". Through the tripartite collaboration of family, government, and community, a new-era community for home-based elderly care should be established through legislative guarantees.[3]By clarifying the unclear responsibility boundaries of each main body, improving and optimizing relevant national and local policy systems, and integrating scattered social and public resources, we can steadily improve the overall quality and operational efficiency of elderly care service supply, which can provide basic theoretical references and practical operable approaches for the whole society to actively respond to the population aging problem.

Keywords

Elderly Care Services; State Responsibility; Family Responsibility; Responsibility Coordination; Social Policy

References

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