Abstract: The high-quality development of social security for older adults is a vital component of China’s modernization drive, which is an inevitable move in the new era to improve people's livelihood and actively respond to population aging. This study employs panel data from China’s 31 provinces spanning 2013–2022, utilizing principal component analysis, entropy-weighted TOPSIS, and an obstacle degree model to examine the high-quality development of social security for the elderly. The findings reveal that the social security for the elderly in China is progressing toward high quality but it is still at a low level. Spatial differentiation is evident at both regional and provincial levels. From a systemic perspective, the most critical obstacles persistently involve innovation and development, while universality and systemic integrity present relatively lower barriers. At the indicator level, the nature of obstacles is experiencing a complete transformation during the sample period. The obstacles in 2013 were mainly concentrated on the shortage of innovative elements, weak basic support and lagging institutional adaptation, which manifested as the element-based and institutional bottlenecks in the early stage of development. By 2022, obstacles has shifted to deeper structural economic issues such as sluggish industrial upgrading, low non-agricultural economic contribution, and inefficient investment.