Rural mutualaid social care system for the elderly develops from the traditional informal mutualaid network, complementing homebased care for the older people. The key point is to provide mutualaid services at a low cost by attracting social investment and human resources. Also, the sustainability of mutualaid social care system relies on investment, organized operation, services and regular evaluation. Based on the sources of investment, the mutualaid communitybased care can be divided into two types: a pure public welfare type and a welfare plus public welfare type. The mutualaid centralized care involves three types: a pure public welfare type, a pure welfare type and a market + type. Currently a prominent problem of the rural mutualaid care is the ignorance of service cultivation and mutual financial assistance. For the mutualaid communitybased care, the services should transit from providing entertainment to providing care. The mutualaid centralized care needs to attract more investment and reduce the cost. Some special forms of mutu

The purpose of rural mutual-aid social care is to provide mutual-aid in the daily life of eld- erly with the notion‘Helping Others Is Helping Self'. It mobilizes older people's human resource as the main service force to provide a new type of social support for the elderly. It can solve the problems of the weakened traditional family care in Chinese rural area and the increasing number of elderly left un- attended，and coordinate China's rural local situation and its modern transformation. It can be upgraded and developed during the construction process of rural area with Chinese characteristics. In recent years，many rural areas began to develop mutual-aid social care，and obtained repeatable successful experience. Chinese rural mutual-aid social care should take low-standard，wide-coverage，and sus- tainability as the goal，use“Helping Others Is Helping Self”concept as action core，and more effective- ly utilize the human resources of rural elderly. In the context of the wide differences lying between devel- oped and underdeveloped rural areas，this may be the best way to resolve the conflict of the rapid growth of elderly population and the limitation of elderly service.