China steps up efforts to get seniors involved in grassroots volunteer programs

China has made new progress in optimizing civil services in recent months and is making efforts to let more elderly get involved in social management by encouraging them to join grassroots volunteer programs.

The Ministry of Civil Affairs said on Wednesday that it has stepped up efforts to encourage seniors with better educational backgrounds to join volunteer programs in less-developed areas, with the move aiming to get the elderly better engaged in social management and contribute their strength to the nation's socioeconomic development.

According to the ministry, over 7 million elderly volunteers have already joined the program and are making their contributions in 4,000-plus volunteer events under the programs in sectors of education, grassroots civil services, agriculture, healthcare and sports, benefiting more than 400 million people in these less-developed areas.

The program, which is led by the National Working Commission on Aging and organized by the China National Committee on Aging, was first launched in 2003. The volunteer program has covered 31 provincial-level regions from the early five experimental provincial regions during the past decades.

According to the civil affairs ministry, the program will include more elderly people with different ages, educational backgrounds and incomes in the future, and the services sectors will include more down-to-the-earth working contents such as nursing the children and assisting people with disabilities, letting the elderly get more opportunities to get involved in social management.

In terms of civil services in marriage registration, the ministry said that it has streamlined marriage registration procedures in recent years by taking experimental steps of letting people to register for marriage at their living or working cities, rather than returning to hometowns.

The ministry said that so far, 434,000 newly weds have registered at their living or working cities under the new policy. The policy was first launched in June 2021 in some cities and provinces and has now been expanded to 21 municipalities and provinces including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Anhui from June last year.