Measuring supply–demand coupling coordination in China’s older adult care services: spatiotemporal evolution, spatial spillover effects, and driving factors based on the spatial Durbin model

Description

Lingxiao Guo leads a six-author team reporting a 2026 spatial analysis of how well elder care supply matches elder care demand across China. Panel data from 31 provinces and municipalities spanning 2014 to 2023 fed the study. The team scored supply and demand with an entropy weight method, combined them in a coupling coordination model, mapped clustering with Moran's index, and ran a spatial Durbin model. That model separates direct effects from spillovers onto neighbouring provinces.

Coordination inched upward over the decade yet stayed low overall. A stark geography emerged: high coordination in the east and low in the west, with the gap widening and clusters of high-high and low-low provinces forming. Supply quality lagged behind upgrading demand, which the authors call the core constraint. Drivers such as population ageing, economic development, and government spending acted differently by region. The paper argues for differentiated provincial policies rather than one national recipe.

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Source: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/PMC13501810