Empowerment + Capacity Building: How Social Organizations Can Contribute to Urban Community Elderly Care Services

Social organizations’ participation in the provision of urban community-based elderly care services serves as a critical pathway to address the challenges posed by an ageing society and to enhance service quality. To answer the livelihood-related question of ‘How social organizations can contribute to urban community elderly care services?’, this study surveys older adults in City N and uses satisfaction with community-based elderly care services delivered by social organizations as the performance indicator. Drawing on the conceptual framework of government external empowerment and internal capacity building within social organizations, the study develops a supply-side model of social organizations’ participation in urban community-based elderly care and conducts an empirical analysis. The results show that government external empowerment, internal capacity building, and supply-demand alignment each have a significant and positive effect on satisfaction with community-based elderly care. Moreover, the integrated ‘empowerment + capacity building’ model—combining government external empowerment with social organizations’ internal capacity building—not only infuses endogenous vitality and external support into their effective participation in providing elderly care services, but also offers a practical and feasible reference for City N to pursue the high-quality and sustainable development of urban community-based elderly care.