The Role of Smart Home-Based Elderly Care in Alleviating the Economic Burden of An Aging Society

Abstract

With rapid population aging, ensuring older adults’ quality of life while easing fiscal and workforce pressures is urgent. This study examines smart home–based eldercare through case and comparative analyses, assessing innovations in technology, service delivery, and policy, and the cost-reduction mechanisms behind them. Findings indicate that smart sensing, remote health monitoring, and community digital services can delay disability, curb reliance on institutional care, and reduce medical and nursing expenditures via precise resource allocation. Japan’s remote monitoring initiatives have demonstrated notable results: emergency call-outs declined by about 23 percent and health expenditures dropped by 15 percent. Similar pilot projects in Beijing and Shenzhen further revealed shorter emergency response intervals and a decrease in referral rates. Collectively, such practices strengthen older adults’ autonomy and sense of security, while also improving their perceived quality of life and easing the burden on care systems. Yet several obstacles remain evident. Many seniors show limited acceptance of new technologies; infrastructure disparities between urban and rural regions persist; privacy and data-security issues are unresolved; and existing standards are fragmented. To achieve sustainable scaling of smart home–based eldercare, coordinated policy backing is needed, alongside product designs that are sensitive to age-related needs, upgraded community service networks, and the gradual establishment of unified industry standards.