First, the burden of pension security is becoming increasingly heavy.

In 2004, China's total expenditure on basic pension insurance reached 350.2 billion yuan, an increase of 65.5% over 2000. The central government's subsidy expenditure on basic pension insurance climbed to 52.2 billion yuan.

Retirement, retirement and severance expenses have also shown a trend of soaring year after year.

The government, enterprises, and society have all felt that the pressure on pension security is increasing significantly.

Second, the elderly are under increasing pressure on medical and health consumption expenditures.

According to estimates, the medical and health resources consumed by the elderly are generally 3-5 times that of other groups.

In 2004, China's basic medical insurance fund expenditures reached 86.2 billion yuan, accounting for 75.5% of fund income, an increase of 31.6% over the previous year, and the growth rate was 3.5 percentage points faster than the growth of fund income.

One of the important reasons why basic medical insurance fund expenditures are growing rapidly is the rapid aging of the population.

Third, the demand for serving the elderly society is expanding rapidly.

At present, China's elderly population is aging and elderly households are becoming empty-nest.

In 2005, there were more than 16 million elderly people over 80 years old in China. The proportion of pure elderly households in elderly households in urban areas was about 40.3%, and in rural areas it was about 37.8%, and continues to increase.

Coupled with the sick and disabled population among the elderly, the number of care services in need is huge, and the development of existing social services is relatively lagging behind.

Taking the number of elderly care institutions and beds as an example, by the end of 2005, there were 39,500 social welfare institutions for the elderly in China, with a total of 1.497 million beds. On average, there were only 10 beds for every 1,000 elderly people.

In developed countries, the average number of elderly care beds per 1,000 elderly people is about 50-70.

According to a survey by the National Working Committee on Aging, about 5% of the elderly want to live in nursing homes. Calculating this, there will be more than 7 million beds. The gap is large, and development needs to be accelerated.

Fourth, compared with cities, there is greater pressure to solve the aging problem in rural areas.

Nearly 60% of China's elderly population is located in rural areas.

The degree of aging in rural areas is 1.24 percentage points higher than that in urban areas.

At the same time, most rural areas have not yet established a social pension insurance system, and the new rural cooperative medical system is still in the pilot stage. Farmers’ pension, medical and social security need to be strengthened.

As the aging of the population accelerates, the pressure on elderly care and medical care in rural areas will be more prominent than in urban areas, especially in western and poverty-stricken areas.