General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "Social security is a fundamental institutional guarantee for ensuring and improving people's livelihoods, maintaining social equity, and enhancing people's well-being." He emphasized, "We must continue to make sustained efforts to promote the high-quality development of the social security cause, weave a tighter social security safety net, and provide a solid foundation for the peaceful and healthy lives of our people." Facing new challenges during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, such as an intensifying aging population and diversified forms of employment, China is deepening reforms in the social security system to ensure this net "provides a solid, precise, and comprehensive safety net." With a universal and sustainable multi-tiered security system, China is laying a solid foundation for people's livelihoods as it advances Chinese modernization.
In Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, Gu Aimei, an elderly woman living alone, was recently hospitalized due to a sudden illness. To her surprise, before she even had the chance to apply for assistance, community workers proactively visited her home to verify her situation, processed a social relief fund on her behalf, and increased her medical assistance coverage to over 80%.
The peace of mind Gu Aimei and her family now feel stems from Zhejiang's comprehensive social relief information platform. In the past, social relief was often a case of "people seeking policies," requiring proactive applications. Today, data from departments such as medical insurance, civil affairs, and health are linked in real-time in the backend. High medical expenses can trigger automatic system alerts, prompting grassroots workers to conduct on-site verifications. This shift from "people seeking policies" to "policies finding people" reflects a profound change in the philosophy of social security.
Social security is a major issue concerning national governance and stability.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed the development of the social security system in a more prominent position.
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that social security is an important institutional arrangement for promoting economic and social development and enabling the general public to share the fruits of reform and development. It plays the role of a safety net for people's livelihoods, a regulator of income distribution, and a shock absorber for economic operations. He has made it clear, "We must increase the intensity of redistribution, strengthen the function of mutual aid and risk pooling, bring more people into the social security system, and provide the general public with more reliable and adequate protection," ensuring that we "provide a solid, precise, and comprehensive safety net."
China has built a social security system with distinct Chinese characteristics, the largest in the world, and fully equipped with comprehensive functions. By the end of 2025, the number of participants in basic pension, basic medical, unemployment, and work-related injury insurance reached 1.076 billion, 1.331 billion, 249 million, and 305 million, respectively. The coverage rate of basic pension insurance rose from 91% at the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period to over 95%.
Focusing on the urgent, difficult, and distressing problems of the people, China's social security cause has continuously improved and innovated policies and systems by solving old and new problems. It has achieved a historic transformation from a "residual" to a "universal" model, and from "fragmentation" to "systematization," and is now moving towards a new stage of greater optimization and sustainability.
The social security system for flexible workers, migrant workers, and those in new forms of employment is being continuously improved to make the safety net more secure.
In Shenzhen, courier worker Yang Nan navigates the city's streets every day. In the past, due to ambiguous employment relationships, he and tens of millions of other flexible workers were long excluded from work-related injury protection. Starting July 1 this year, the pilot program for occupational injury protection for workers in new forms of employment has been fully rolled out across all 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps nationwide.
A tiered and categorized social relief system is being improved to make the safety net more precise.
In the past, eligibility for livelihood assistance was primarily determined by "household income," leaving some families with high rigid expenses, such as medical and rehabilitation costs, unidentified. China's first dedicated social relief law, introduced this year, officially brings low-income edge families and families facing difficulties due to rigid expenditures into the statutory scope of relief. The identification criteria have been expanded from "income-only" to a comprehensive assessment of "income plus expenditure." Furthermore, operational mechanisms such as "single-window acceptance and collaborative processing" have been established by law, ensuring that relief accurately reaches more people who truly need it.
Addressing new issues in an aging society, the safety net is being made more effective.
China's population aged 60 and above has exceeded 300 million, and "one person's loss of self-care ability throws the whole family into imbalance" is a hidden pain for many families. This year, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Accelerating the Establishment of a Long-Term Care Insurance System, marking that the long-term care insurance, known as the "sixth insurance," has officially entered a new stage of comprehensive implementation after a decade of pilot programs. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the long-term care insurance system will basically achieve nationwide coverage, reducing the financial burden on families caring for the disabled and continuously addressing the care challenges of 35 million elderly people who have lost their ability to care for themselves.
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