The value implication, practical dilemmas, and optimization paths of the silver economy in the context of active agingTaking rural elderly care as an example

With the acceleration of China's population aging process, the issue of elderly care in rural areas has become increasingly prominent. As an emerging economic form, the silver economy can not only meet the practical needs of rural elderly care but also demonstrate great potential in promoting the development of the rural elderly care industry. However, the vertical economic gap between urban and rural silver populations in China still exists. At this stage, the actual role of the silver economy in rural elderly care faces many dilemmas, including insufficient market consumption capacity, supply-demand mismatch of services and products, lack of infrastructure under policy guarantees, and deficiency in the multi-subject coordination mechanism. This paper analyzes the current practical bottlenecks of developing the silver economy for rural elderly care and puts forward suggestions on optimization paths. The study holds that optimizing the rural elderly care system needs to start from three main aspects: improving policy support, supporting industrial development, and guiding the transformation of consumption concepts, so as to realize the coordinated development of the silver economy and rural elderly care and promote the high-quality development of urban and rural areas.