Chinese Cities Compete for the Silver Economy: Leveraging Technology in a Market of 320 Million Elderly Consumers

Local governments in China are shifting the focus of urban competition from attracting young talent to catering to the elderly population, according to reports from Huxiu and Huashang Taolüe. As of June 2026, more than a dozen provinces, including Jilin, Hainan, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Sichuan, Shandong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, have introduced special policies targeting the silver economy. These policies aim to strengthen industries such as health management, healthcare, and travel-based senior living facilities.

By the end of 2025, China’s population aged 60 and above is expected to reach 320 million, accounting for 23% of the total population. By 2035, this number is predicted to exceed 400 million. The consumption potential of this significant demographic is immense. Urban retirees alone receive over 500 billion yuan in monthly pensions, amounting to approximately 7 trillion yuan annually. The total market size of the silver economy is projected to grow from about 10 trillion yuan in 2025 to 30 trillion yuan by 2035, equivalent to roughly 10% of the nation’s GDP. This makes it one of the largest potential consumer markets for future growth.

Elderly Populations:

A New Focal Point in Urban Competition

Traditionally, local governments in China have focused on attracting young workers and high-tech talent through tax incentives and subsidies. However, as population growth slows and aging accelerates, cities are increasingly recognizing the spending power of the elderly as a new growth driver.

Unlike short-term tourists staying for two or three days, long-term elderly residents may remain in one area for several months. This generates sustained consumption across various sectors, including housing, dining, healthcare, cultural tourism, and domestic services. According to Huxiu, long-term senior care in Guangxi generated more than 58 billion yuan in spending between January and July 2025. Similarly, long-term stays in Yunnan resulted in total expenditures of 69.705 billion yuan in 2024, a 54.2% year-on-year increase. If elderly individuals settle permanently in their chosen locations, it can directly contribute to regional economic revitalization.

Three Technology-Driven Competition Models

To attract elderly residents, regions are forming competition models differentiated by three main aspects: climate resources, healthcare resources, and quality of life experiences. In all these models, the use of technology plays a pivotal role.

In northern regions like Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Chengde in Hebei, the focus is on summer healthcare retreats. Jilin, for instance, plans to establish 80 trial long-term senior care institutions and add 30,000 healthcare beds by 2028. From 2027, the province will allocate 1 billion yuan annually for three consecutive years to transform its summer economy into a key part of the silver economy. Meanwhile, Chengde in Hebei is targeting elderly residents from Beijing and Tianjin by offering free entry to scenic spots, free public transportation, and mutual recognition of nursing home ratings and senior capability assessments across the three cities. Such inter-city collaborations require standardized data and API integration, and cloud platforms are being developed to support this.

In southern regions like Hainan, Guangxi, and Panzhihua in Sichuan, the focus is on providing long-term winter retreats. Hainan has introduced 18 special measures, including access to medical and long-term care insurance for long-term elderly residents. Guangxi has set up silver tourism trains and housing purchase incentives, while Beihai city offers services such as guided tours for seniors over 70 and continuous medication supply for chronic conditions. Panzhihua is leveraging its abundant sunshine to establish a “Sunshine Healthcare” brand and conducts ongoing promotions in cities like Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing. In these regions, remote medical services and health monitoring are supported by IoT sensors and cloud-based health management applications.

Other cities are competing with their medical resources. Shanghai has established the Yangtze River Delta Long-Term Senior Care Alliance in collaboration with Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui to standardize service levels and medical guarantees. Suzhou is working with Shanghai to develop smart healthcare devices, while Baoding is exploring a “Beijing for diagnosis, Baoding for rehabilitation” model. These efforts likely involve the adoption of common API standards for medical data interoperability and the implementation of AI-powered diagnostic support systems. In the field of smart healthcare, significant advancements are expected in wearable devices for continuous biometric monitoring and automated systems for notifying medical institutions during emergencies.

Cities like Kaifeng and Fuyang are focusing on cultural experiences, exploring a “healthcare + cultural tourism” model that leverages regional cultural resources. To transition short-term tourism spending into long-term living expenditures, creating a digital platform to enhance daily convenience for elderly residents is crucial. Examples include regional information services for seniors and applications integrating booking and payment functions.

Private Sector Investments and the Role of

Technology Companies

Anticipating the expansion of the silver economy, private companies are actively investing in this sector. According to Huxiu, insurance companies like Taikang and Everbright are accelerating the construction of nationwide long-term senior care networks. Real estate companies such as Vanke and Sino-Ocean are repurposing existing properties into healthcare communities. These facilities are likely equipped with IoT sensors and cloud-based monitoring systems to manage residents’ health and emergencies effectively.

There is also significant potential for technology companies to enter this space. With the growing demand for smart healthcare devices, competition in developing wearable devices and biometric sensors is expected to intensify. Moreover, as provinces and cities work toward standardizing and integrating health data, demand for medical information systems and API platforms will increase. Projects like the Yangtze River Delta Long-Term Senior Care Alliance will require shared data infrastructure and robust security measures, creating opportunities for cloud service providers and cybersecurity specialists.

Policy Support and the Formation of an

Industrial Ecosystem

In January 2024, the Chinese State Council General Office issued a policy titled “Opinions on the Development of the Silver Economy and Improvement of Elderly Welfare.” This was the first national-level policy document explicitly dedicated to the silver economy. Subsequently, a series of related policies have been introduced, covering areas such as senior service consumption, cross-regional senior care, integrated medical and elderly care, and training for senior care personnel. This has expanded the policy landscape for local governments to develop the silver economy, gradually forming a competitive framework at both national and regional levels.

The essence of this competition goes beyond merely attracting elderly residents. Huxiu’s article outlines four layers of this competition: capturing long-term consumption, forming industrial chains that integrate healthcare, cultural tourism, real estate, and smart manufacturing, revitalizing fixed assets (e.g., non-local buyers made up 74.7% of property purchasers at Yanji’s spring real estate fair), and securing an early position in the future market. By the 2030s, individuals born in the 1970s and 1980s will reach retirement age. As a more digitally savvy generation with stronger purchasing power, they will likely drive demand for personalized health management and telemedicine. Currently, healthcare consumers are already averaging 41.5 years old, signaling a new trend of “family-wide healthcare.”

Future Prospects and the Role of Technology

Long-term senior care in China is still in its infancy. Between July 2024 and June 2025, only 84.316 million individuals utilized long-term senior care services, a small fraction of the country’s elderly population of over 300 million. While past urban competition in China focused on attracting young people, future efforts will need to prioritize making cities attractive for senior residents.

In this new competition, technology will play a decisive role. Platforms for collecting and analyzing elderly health data, telecommunications infrastructure for remote medical care, smart home technologies to enhance quality of life, and cloud foundations for inter-regional data integration will all be critical to the development of the silver economy. The push for data standardization and interoperability across provinces and cities also presents significant business opportunities for technology companies worldwide, including those in Japan.

The silver economy is not merely an industry for elderly services but a cross-sectoral economy encompassing healthcare, senior housing, tourism, IT, and manufacturing. The strategies and technologies adopted by Chinese cities in competing for this burgeoning market will be key indicators of the future trajectory of urban competition.

Editorial Opinion

In the short term, subsidies and tax incentives introduced by local governments for silver economy-related initiatives between 2026 and 2027 are expected to accelerate the adoption of smart healthcare devices and health management platforms. Provinces like Jilin and Guangxi, which have openly disclosed their budget plans, are likely to see a concentration of contracts awarded to related technology vendors. For Japanese technology companies, this represents a significant opportunity to export caregiving robots and monitoring systems to the Chinese market, although challenges related to data sovereignty and regulatory compliance will also need to be addressed.

In the long term, the forecast of a 30 trillion yuan silver economy by 2035 is too substantial to ignore from an investment perspective. By the late 2030s, as people born in the 1970s and 1980s reach retirement, a generation of digitally adept seniors with greater spending power will likely emerge. This could lead to a surge in demand for personalized health management and remote healthcare services powered by artificial intelligence. However, it’s crucial to keep in mind China’s stringent data protection laws and cross-border data regulations. A key question for the editorial team is: What lessons can China’s silver economy competition offer for other aging nations such as Japan?

References

• ” 史无前例，中国城市集体“啃”老 ”, by 华商韬略 — 虎嗅网, 2026-07-12T09:40:01.000Z (ARR)
• Source URL: https://www.huxiu.com/article/4874627.html?f=rss