Identification of Regional Disparities and Obstacle Factors in Basic Elderly Care Services in China—Based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Amidst the accelerating trend of population aging, addressing regional disparities in basic elderly care services (BECS for short) and identifying the key obstacles to their development have become crucial prerequisites for development. Taking urgent transformation measures is indispensable for enhancing the quality of fundamental senior care provisions and advancing the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs for short) by 2030. However, the extant literature does not have a sufficient understanding of the evolution of differences, spatial correlations, and sources of obstacles. Therefore, this paper takes the period from 2021 to 2023 as the investigation period and comprehensively applies the entropy weight method, Dagum Gini coefficient, kernel density estimation, Moran Index, and obstacle degree model to conduct a systematic analysis of BECS in China. Quantitative results obtained from the research demonstrate that the level of BECS in China follows the pattern of eastern > western > central > northeastern regions. The overall difference slightly increases, and the differences within and between regions vary. The kernel density estimation results are highly consistent with the current landscape of the level of BECS in China, and the spatial correlation and aggregation characteristics are obvious. It was also found that the main obstacles in the quasi-measurement layer (including the indicator layer) were concentrated in the dimension of welfare subsidies. Based on this, a policy combination proposal is put forward in terms of strengthening the construction of a multi-subject supply network, promoting the cross-regional coordinated development of human, financial, and material factors, and enhancing the government’s governance capacity, with the aim of increasing Chinese contributions to improving the level of BECS and achieving the United Nations 2030 Sustainability Goals on schedule.