Global consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said Thursday that elder care includes home care, community care and acute care, but home care remains the main method of caring for seniors in China.
Senior living communities are less conventional but rapidly growing, said Sabrianna Xing, a partner in the firm's healthcare practice.
"Rises in the number of China's elder care institutions and value of private investments are underpinned by government support and market demand," she said, adding that demand for elder care beds is expected to double to more than 12 million in 2025 from about 6 million now.
Currently, approaches to elder care focus on disease treatment by medical professionals, which represents the acute end of the care spectrum. Expenditure on care is consequently being diverted to the costliest part of the healthcare system, such as hospitals. However, shifting dynamics such as those in demographics and urban migration render this current approach economically unsustainable, she said.
The percentage of beds in private-sector elder care institutions went up from 2 percent of total beds in 1999 to 13 percent in 2010, according to PwC.
Elder care requires a community-oriented approach rather than being organized around institutions, with clusters of care providers sharing accountability for the budgets they manage and the quality of personalized services they supply, Xing said.
Separately, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said in a report on Wednesday the segment of the population aged above 60 years old will increase from 222 million in 2015 to 492 million in 2050, accounting for just under 38 percent of the total by then.
