Abstract
Policymakers have attempted to address the rising care demands of older adults by introducing marketization into community services. However, a thorny issue arises: for some older adults, service accessibility may not have improved and may even have worsened due to marketization. The theoretical relationship between marketization and service accessibility remains unclear. This article focuses on a market-oriented practice in China, venture philanthropy, which allows us to isolate the effects of marketization. Using a quasi-experimental approach, this study investigated the impact of venture philanthropy on the accessibility of community service for older adults. Our findings revealed that the effects of marketization are complex. While marketization generally increases accessibility, its effects are heterogeneous, with more significant benefits for high-income groups. Even with some support, the most disadvantaged groups may still struggle to benefit from marketization. This article provides direct evidence of marketization’s impact on the long-term care system and urges policymakers to address the inequalities that may arise from such market-driven approaches.
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Data availability
This study used publicly available data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). The original data can be obtained via the Peking University Open Research Data Platform (http://opendata.pku.edu.cn/). The do-file and the processed dataset for this study have been uploaded to (Figshare/https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.30849089). The do-file contains the coding for the empirical analysis. The processed dataset is an unbalanced panel including all valid samples from 2005 to 2018.
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Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences (grant numbers 21ZDA103 and 23CRK011). All opinions and any errors are our own.
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HL: conceptualization, research design, statistical analysis, original draft writing, revision, and editing; HJL: conceptualization, review, and editing, funding.
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This study is a secondary analysis of de-identified data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS). The original CLHLS survey was approved by the Biomedical Ethics Committee of Peking University (IRB Approval No. IRB00001052-13074) and conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki.
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Li, H., Liu, H. Does the venture philanthropy of community service enhance older adults’ service accessibility?—Evidence from China. Humanit Soc Sci Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06795-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-026-06795-y
