SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Policy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1556302
This article is part of the Research TopicPublic Health Outcomes: The Role of Social Security Systems in Improving Residents' Health WelfareView all 33 articles
A Computational Grounded Theory Based Analysis of Research on China's Old-Age Social Welfare System
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Social Welfare, College of Social Sciences, Sungkyunkwan University, Jongno-gu, Republic of Korea
- 2College of Physical Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
- 3College of Physical Education, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China
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Purpose: By the end of 2024, 22% of the Chinese population was aged 60 and above, making old-age social welfare a critical challenge. Despite abundant literature, a gap remains between research and policy. This study applies Nelson's computational grounded theory to systematically analyze China's old-age social welfare research and propose targeted policy priorities. Methods: We searched Chinese literature (2014-2024) from the Wanfang, CNKI, and CQVIP databases. After preprocessing the abstracts, we applied topic modeling using the Latent Dirichlet Allocation, guided by human analysts. Optimal topics were determined using perplexity and coherence metrics. Researchers then linked each topic to sociologically meaningful concepts to derive abstract policy conclusions. Results: A total of 413 articles met eligibility criteria. Seven topics emerged: (1) the theoretical significance of social welfare policy; (2) enhancing rural old-age care; (3) providing care for special groups; (4) promoting a home-community care model; (5) optimizing precision care through collaborative mechanisms; (6) developing community culture; and (7) establishing supply-driven care services. Notably, topics two and seven dominated the literature. Conclusions: Based on these themes, we propose policy priorities to enhance comprehensive social welfare programs. China's big government model -a top-level design involving diverse stakeholders -may serve as an effective framework for addressing a global aging society marked by rising noncommunicable diseases and AI-driven economic growth. Moreover, our computer-assisted approach offers a valuable method for information scientists, aiding policymakers in navigating extensive digital data for more cost-effective and timely decision-making.
Keywords: Elderly, Natural Language Processing, Latent Dirichlet Allocation, Social insurance, Social Security, topic modeling. 2.4. Computational grounded theory
Received: 06 Jan 2025; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 AGUDAMU, Li, Mi and Pan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Na Mi, College of Physical Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, Hunan Province, China
Xinyue Pan, College of Physical Education, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.