On January 15, 2024, the General Office of ** issued the "Opinions on Developing the Silver Economy and Improving the Well-being of the Elderly" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which is the first document named after the "Silver Economy".
According to the World Bank, as of 2022, China's elderly population aged 65 and above accounted for 13 percent of the country's total population72%, accounting for 2486%, making it the country with the largest elderly population in the world. **By 2050, the proportion of China's elderly population will reach 25%, entering a super-aging society. At the same time, Japan is the world's oldest aging country, accounting for 30% of the total population, followed by Germany and France. Ageing has become a serious challenge for the global community.
In addition, according to the "Research on the Development of China's Aging Industry and Index System", the total consumption of China's elderly population will reach 12 trillion yuan to 15 trillion yuan in 20305 trillion yuan, and it will reach 40 trillion yuan to 69 trillion yuan in 2050, accounting for 12 trillion yuan of national GDP2% to 207%。
The silver economy is becoming a new driving force for economic development. Focusing on the needs of the elderly and providing a series of related products and services, this emerging economic sector not only shows huge consumption potential to the society, but also provides unlimited market opportunities for related industries.
The boom in the silver economy is no accident. With the social and economic development and the concept of health deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, the elderly have an increasing demand for quality of life, from material needs to spiritual needs, from physical health to mental health, showing diversified and personalized characteristics. The rise of the silver economy is just to meet this demand, providing a more comfortable, convenient and fulfilling life experience for the elderly.
From another point of view, the development of the silver economy is also inseparable from the promotion of science and technology. The progress of modern science and technology has provided strong support for the development of the silver economy, and the application of big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies in the fields of pension services and health care has injected new vitality into the development of the silver economy.
A new trend in health food
The "Opinions" put forward 26 measures in 4 aspects. There are two mentions of food in the article: one is to strengthen the innovation of elderly products, and the "Opinions" proposes to encourage the research and development of health foods and special medical formula foods suitable for the chewing, swallowing and nutritional requirements of the elderly; The second is to promote the transformation of the elderly, and the "Opinions" require the promotion of the instructions and publicity materials for the elderly food, drugs, supplies, etc.
As a representative of an aging society, Japan has rich experience in the development of food for the elderly, and the market is relatively mature. In response to the special dietary needs of the elderly, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has enacted the Health Promotion Act, which includes special dietary foods specifically for the elderly, known as "long-care" foods or smile-care foods. In order to facilitate the choice of the elderly, each food corresponds to a different color, so that the elderly can distinguish different categories of special dietary foods more intuitively and conveniently when purchasing and using products.
In 2016, the International Action Committee on Dietary Standards for People with Dysphagia (IDDSI) developed international textural standards to address the special needs of older adults and people with dysphagia. The framework classifies dysphagia diets into 8 levels (0 7), with liquid foods measured on a 0 4 scale and solid foods on a 3 7 scale. This framework provides dietary texture guidance for the elderly and patients with dysphagia, and provides scientific guidance and theoretical basis for the food industry to design special dietary foods.
The dietary guidelines for Chinese residents divide the diets of the elderly in China into three categories: soft food, semi-liquid and paste. In September 2018, the National Health Commission issued China's first national standard for food for the elderly, "General Principles of National Food Safety Standards for Elderly Food (Draft for Comments)", which defines food for the elderly, including easy-to-eat food, nutritional formula food for the elderly and nutritional supplementary food for the elderly.
On April 23, 2019, the Chinese Geriatrics Society issued the group standard of "General Principles of Nutritional Formula Food for the Elderly", which is applicable to nutritional formula food for the elderly. On February 22, 2021, the Chinese Nutrition Society released the group standard of "Easy Food", focusing on people with dysphagia.
At present, China's elderly health care products are mainly divided into two categories: one is health food, which is used as a daily dietary nutrient supplement to meet the specific nutrient needs of the elderly; The second is to prepare aleurone food, which mainly helps the elderly with swallowing disorders to take in the nutrients necessary for the daily life of the human body.
From a functional point of view, most of the health needs of silver-haired consumers are concentrated in the three highs, memory loss, dental health, sleep problems, joint and bone health problems, vision problems, shoulder and neck problems caused by sedentary life, hair loss, etc. According to the "2022 Nutrition and Health Trends" released by JD Health, the three highs are the health issues that the silver-haired consumer group is most concerned about.
In addition, the "Bone and Joint Health***" released by CBNDAT shows that in 2020, 32% of middle-aged and elderly people (people under 70) in China have joint problems. The root cause of joint pain is the continuous loss of ammonia sugar, in fact, after the age of 30, the level of ammonia sugar in the body continues to decrease and is no longer produced. Among the raw materials for protecting bone and joint health, glucosamine, chondroitin sulfate, collagen, and vitamin minerals have attracted much attention. At the same time, some natural ingredients such as curcumin, krill oil, astaxanthin, hop resin extract, black ginger polymethoxyflavonoids, etc. are also popular in foreign markets.
According to the data, 15.07 million people over the age of 60 in China suffer from dementia, 9.83 million with Alzheimer's disease, 3.92 million with vascular dementia, and 1.32 million with other types of dementia. Cognitive function in older adults is associated with a variety of dietary components, with a high-carbohydrate diet that may increase the risk of cognitive dysfunction in older adults, and unsaturated fatty acids (e.g., DHA, EPA) and vitamin C have been shown to have protective effects on cognitive function. The trace elements iron and selenium are generally thought to have a positive effect on cognitive function.
Nutrition and anti-aging attract attention
In addition to further strengthening the development of nutritional and health care products for the silver-haired consumer group, anti-aging has also been mentioned in an important position: the "Opinions" put forward the development of anti-aging industry as a key cultivation potential industry. It is required to deepen the research on the mechanism of aging, human aging model, human hair health, etc., and strengthen the research and development and application of gene technology, regenerative medicine, laser radio frequency and other fields in the field of anti-aging. Promote the deep integration of biotechnology such as genetic testing and molecular diagnosis with the delay of geriatric diseases, and develop products and services for early screening of geriatric diseases. Promote the research and development of cosmetic raw materials, formula and production process design and development.
Many readers have reported to Knowledge Economy that there is a problem of mismatch between demand and positioning in the current health care product market. To put it simply, most of the health foods on the market are to promote the concept of health to consumers to achieve the purpose of promoting products, but from the perspective of consumers, the purpose of buying health products is more to need corresponding products to regulate the body after their own sub-health conditions. Among them, the concept of anti-aging is also facing a similar situation, many products are oriented to the middle group with high consumption power, and even start marketing from "anti-aging", but the elderly consumer groups who really have the most urgent demand for prolonging life, the market for related products is not saturated.
Anti-aging is not simply to increase the life span of human beings, but to delay the onset of aging and prolong the life of "healthy old people". Therefore, the concept of anti-aging is not the prerogative of drugs and medical treatment, and health products have a wide range of development space in this field.
According to iiMedia Consulting data, the market size of China's pension industry will reach 10 in 20223 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 167%。With the deepening of China's aging population, China's pension-related enterprises have broad development prospects in the future.
03 Expansion of derivative tracksAccording to iiMedia Consulting data, the global special medical food market size will increase from 58.3 billion yuan to 89.6 billion yuan in 2014 and 2022400 million yuan; It is expected to exceed the 100 billion mark in 2027, reaching 1110600 million yuan. With the intensification of the aging trend of the global population and the continuous increase in average life expectancy, the special medical food industry has become a new blue ocean for the big health industry, and the market scale will be further expanded. According to the data, the market size of China's health care products industry will reach 298.9 billion yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 104%, which is expected to reach 423.7 billion yuan in 2027. The domestic health care products market has been affected by the ban on medical insurance cards in pharmacy channels, the "100-day action" and the official implementation of the cross-border e-commerce law, and the market growth has slowed down. However, in the long run, after three years of the epidemic, consumers' health awareness has increased year by year, and the number and spending power of the silver-haired group are getting higher and higher.
The silver economy has not only brought more possibilities to the development of the big health industry, but also given birth to many related industries to usher in development opportunities.
At present, the relevant tracks of the pension industry mainly include pension real estate, pension institution industry, medical equipment, nursing facilities, intelligent pension and other pension medical care industries, as well as online education, travel and sports with social attributes and other elderly education and entertainment industries.
With the blessing of the Internet and new technologies, e-commerce has developed rapidly in recent years, and the development trend of "Internet + big health" is also reshaping the online layout of the health industry. Taking medicine as an example, the data shows that from 2016 to 2022, China's pharmaceutical e-commerce market has grown year by year, and the size of the pharmaceutical e-commerce market in 2022 will be 24860 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%, is expected to exceed 340 billion yuan in 2026. With the promulgation of a series of regulatory policies such as the gradual liberalization of online prescription drugs, the pharmaceutical e-commerce market will usher in huge opportunities, and the scale will continue to grow in the future.
In addition to the most intuitive medical services, the elderly care industry based on home care services, community elderly care services and institutional elderly care services has also been helped, with the implementation of the pension service policy and the further release of the security system, the related elderly care services are expected to develop in the direction of higher quality and higher quality.
In recent years, sunset red tour groups focusing on the silver-haired group have also gradually emerged. According to data from the National Commission on Aging, from 2016 to 2020, the average annual growth rate of cultural tourism consumption for the elderly in China reached 23%, exceeding 700 billion yuan in 2021. In the silver industry, middle-aged and elderly tourism has become a hot track. According to data from the China Tourism Academy, in 2021, 45 64-year-olds traveled 90.2 billion times, accounting for 27 percent of the total number of travelers8%, becoming the largest source of tourists in the tourism market.
According to the survey of the subdivision track, the silver-haired people are more inclined to join group trips, and like to go to those cultural landscapes with homesickness, and tracing the roots has become a hot product. In addition, urban suburbs and rural tours in the province are also favored by silver-haired people.
According to a survey data, among the factors related to rural tourism, users are more concerned about "comfortable natural environment", "characteristic folk culture" and "unique flavor food".
With the popularity of Harbin in the winter of 2023, all localities are actively playing the cultural tourism card, hoping to attract more consumers. Different regions can combine the travel preferences and characteristics of target consumer groups, explore rural characteristics, refine operations, and compete for tourist destinations. However, as an important part of China's tourism consumption market, silver tourism still has many problems such as insufficient management norms and imbalance between supply and demand, especially the false propaganda and fraud that often cause criticism, so that elderly consumers are unable to prevent it. Therefore, the related tourism products and services still need to be further optimized.
Words related to silver-haired people can't avoid "empty nesters". When the children in the family go out to work one after another, leaving only the middle-aged and elderly people to live alone, the term "empty nest" appears more and more in people's field of vision, and the situation and emotional needs of empty nesters are also more and more valued by everyone. In order to alleviate loneliness, many elderly people choose to welcome "pets" as new family members.
Data shows that in 2022, the scale of China's pet economy industry has exceeded 493.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 252%, and the market size is expected to reach 811.4 billion yuan in 2025. As a new companion, the silver-haired people are spending more and more on pets, and the consumption of pet food, supplies, medical care, entertainment and other consumption has increased significantly, and the pet economy has also ushered in a blue ocean of development.
In the silver economy, which is no longer new, there are infinite possibilities and opportunities. As the elderly population increases, their needs and consumption habits are becoming an important force in driving economic development. To meet the consumer needs of this group, brands need to dig deeper, understand their needs and preferences, and provide them with more intimate and convenient services. At the same time, the direct selling field, which is dominated by big health, should also find the pain points of the demand for middle-aged and elderly health products, and jointly promote the development of the industry in this blue ocean full of opportunities and challenges, so as to create a better life for the elderly.
*:Knowledge economy.