Labor participation of Chinese older people and construction of age-friendly occupational health protection system

Population aging has become a normal state in China, and actively responding to the aging of the population has been elevated to a "national strategy" in China. The communique of the fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China emphasized "developing elderly human resources and developing silver economy," which means that capable older people are encouraged to actively participate in economic construction through labor participation; at the same time, promoting the participation of older persons in the process of development and sharing the fruits of development are also crucial for the balanced development and common prosperity of the whole society. Based on the necessity, feasibility, and reality of the elderly's labor participation, this paper proposed the construction of an age-friendly occupational health protection system from two aspects: environmental support and internal capacity support. A sufficient volume of low-aged older people with good quality should be a basic driving force for promoting high-quality economic development, while the current proportion of actively employed elderly people is low, their average education level is far from what we expected, and the channels for employment are limited. In the future construction of an age-friendly occupational health protection system, the institutional environment and occupational environment support for elderly workers should be improved, laws and regulations on the employment of the elderly should be formulated, and an age-friendly work environment should be constructed; at the same time, internal capacity support should be provided for older workers to maintain their working ability in aging process, stimulate their subjective initiative, and pay attention to the career development of the whole life cycle to realize the better participation of the working population in economic development in the process of aging. Through these measures, a more inclusive and sustainable society can be anticipated, making the labor participation of older people an important force to promote social progress.