China has announced plans to raise some of the lowest statutory retirement ages in the world, in a bid to tackle the fallout from the crisis. a rapidly ageing population And a crisis in pension financing.
Currently, men in urban areas can retire at the age of 60 and receive a pension from state-supported funds. The retirement age for female urban workers is 50 or 55, depending on their occupation. Rural residents in China are covered by a different pension system.
Beijing’s plans, announced last weekend, have already sparked outrage.
“In accordance with the principles of voluntariness and flexibility, we will steadily and orderly pursue the reform of gradually postponing the statutory retirement age,” China’s ruling Communist Party said on Sunday.
The plan, along with several other key reforms, was announced in a resolution three days after the country’s leaders finalized China’s reforms. third plenary meetinga major political gathering in Beijing held every five years.
As China struggles with a declining birth rate and an aging population, policymakers have been talking about raising the retirement age for more than a decade.
At the 2013 plenary session, a top decision-making body of the Communist Party said it had become necessary to “study and formulate” a policy to delay the retirement age. Eight years later, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, China’s cabinet included the policy in its next five-year plan, meaning changes could take effect before 2025.
Although the government did not release details this weekend, a december report According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a major government think tank, everyone will eventually retire at age 65.
In 2019, the same think tank predicted that China’s state pension fund would run out by 2035 due to a shrinking working population. Years of severe pandemic-related restrictions, which local government coffers have shrunkcould make the pension deficit even more acute.
Early last year, thousands of elderly people came protested in several major cities against major cuts to their health insurance, fearing that local governments would tap their individual accounts to cover shortfalls in the state pension fund.
Anger on social media
Chinese social media reacted angrily to changes in the retirement age, with many expressing dismay at the prospect of delayed access to their pensions. Younger people also complained that they would have fewer jobs if older workers stayed in the workforce longer.
On Weibo, the hashtag “promoting the reform of postponing the retirement age” has been a trending topic since Sunday.
One of the most liked comments was: “Please note: postponing the retirement age only means that you will not be able to receive your pension until very late. It does not guarantee that you will have a job before then!”
“Young people have a hard time finding work, but old people are not allowed to retire. What are you doing? How dare you encourage people to have three children?” another Weibo user responded, referring to the government’s plans to boost China’s shrinking population.
The unemployment rate among China’s youth is rose to historic heights after the Covid-19 pandemic. Even after restrictions are lifted, employers remain reluctant to hire as the economy slows.
The government large-scale repression Sectors ranging from technology and real estate to private tutoring, once the biggest employers of graduates, have seen many jobs disappear from the labor market. A structural mismatch has exacerbated the problem as college graduates opt for office jobs over blue-collar jobs, while factories struggle to hire workers.
Lack of quality jobs could worsen China’s population crisis. Although the government has relaxed the limit on the number of children allowed per couple, national campaigns launched By encouraging families to have more children and offering financial sweeteners, the Chinese people’s willingness to have children is almost the same. lowest in the world.
The population of the country is shrunk over the past two yearswith 2023 marking the lowest birth rate since the founding of communist China in 1949. Last year, China surpassed by India as the most populous country in the world.
On Xiaohongshu, the Chinese equivalent of Instagram, the hashtag “retirement age” had also been viewed about 100 million times by Tuesday morning.
“Delay the retirement age on a ‘voluntary basis’? Just like the older generation was ‘voluntarily’ forced to have only one child or was fired from state-owned companies?” said a Xiaohongshu user.
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