Replication of central policy or local innovation: a study of the policy reinvention mechanism for sports policies for older adults in China's provincial local governments.

Abstract

This study examines how Chinese provincial governments adapt central sports policies for older adults. It aims to measure the degree of local policy reinvention and to identify the combinations of conditions under which substantive local redesign is more likely to occur. A total of 109 central and provincial policy documents on sports for older adults issued between 2015 and 2024 were collected and systematically analyzed. First, a cosine similarity method based on TF-IDF is used to compare the one-to-one matching central and provincial policy texts to construct a policy reinvention coefficient. Second, fsQCA was applied in a periodized design aligned with the 13th and 14th Five-Year Plan stages to examine how per capita provincial-level sports fiscal expenditure, population aging, public sports service resources, policy salience in aging planning, horizontal pressure, and adoption timing jointly shape high reinvention outcomes within each planning stage. The overall level of policy reinvention is relatively high, with clear provincial variation but no extreme polarization. Reinvention fluctuated in the earlier years and became more stable after 2020. The periodized fsQCA further shows that the mechanisms of high reinvention differ across planning stages. In the 13th Five-Year Plan stage, five configurations were identified and grouped into delayed learning-adjustment, rapid capacity-response, and constraint-compensating types. In the observed 14th Five-Year Plan stage, seven configurations were identified and grouped into fiscal-demand, horizontal-learning, and aging-response types. These results suggest that provincial governments redesign central directives through stage-specific combinations of demographic demand, sports sector fiscal support, service resources, policy attention, adoption timing, and interprovincial learning. The local adaptation of sports policies for older adults in China follows multiple pathways rather than a single uniform model. Policy reinvention is shaped by both stable provincial conditions and stage-specific governance contexts. The periodized results show that early-stage reinvention relied more on learning, adjustment time, and resource preparation, while later stage reinvention was more strongly associated with aging pressure, sports sector fiscal support, and horizontal policy learning. These findings contribute to research on sports policy for older adults and offer evidence for improving the local implementation of healthy aging policies.