Spatial Accessibility and Supply-Demand Analysis of Elderly Dining Services in Beijing

China's population has been aging rapidly in recent years, with more than 90 percent of elderly people living at home and many of them alone. Although they are in need of many services, healthy and affordable meals are particularly important because most find cooking three meals a day to be a challenge. In response, several cities in China such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi'an have set up Elderly Dining Services (EDS) with government subsidies. A survey of 227 local residents aged sixty and over as well as the nine designated restaurants for EDS in the area was conducted in 2012 in the Xinjiekou Jiedao community of Xicheng District in Beijing to determine whether these services are accessible and sufficient to meet the demand of the local elderly population. Our findings show that eat-in services are considered within an acceptable distance for 90 percent of elderly residents and that delivery services within 1,000m would cover 100 percent of the 16,913 elderly residents in the area (although not all of them are interested in EDS). The potential demand far exceeds what the nine EDS restaurants are willing to provide, however. Our results indicate that the main issue in supply shortage is cost, especially for delivery services.