互助养老:中国农村养老的出路

Mutual Aid for the Aged: The Way Out for the Aged in China s Rural Areas

未富先老的农村老龄化是一个重大挑战。当前农村家庭养老和机构养老都很难应对农村老龄化,中国农村养老的出路在于发展农村互助养老。从当前发展互助养老的实践来看,有三种重要的互助养老技术受到重视,分别是志愿服务、低偿服务、“时间银行”。遗憾的是,虽然国家一直在推广农村互助养老,但效果并不好,其中的重要原因是实践中相对忽视环境建设,没有将互助养老技术置于村庄社会信任条件下。缺少村庄社会资本,互助养老技术难以良性运转。农村互助养老需要与之匹配的村庄建设尤其是村庄文化建设。以村庄熟人社会和家庭养老为基础的互助养老,为中国提供了低成本、高质量的养老模式,为中国应对老龄化提供了战略选择。

The aging of rural areas before getting rich is a major challenge.The only way out is to develop the mutual assistance for the aged in rural areas.From the current practice of developing mutual assistance for the aged,there are three important mutual assistance techniques for the aged,which are voluntary service,compensation service and time bank.Unfortunately,although the country has been promoting mutual assistance for the aged in rural areas,the effect is not good enough.The important reason is that environmental construction is relatively neglected in practice and mutual assistance for the aged is not placed under the conditions of social trust in villages.Due to the lack of village social capital,mutual aid technique for the elderly is difficult to operate.Rural mutual assistance for the aged needs to be matched with village construction,especially village culture construction.Mutual pension based on village acquaintance society and family pension provide China with a low-cost and high-quality pension model and a strategic choice for China to cope with aging problem.