China to raise retirement age for first time since 1950s

China will “steadily elevate” its retirement age for the primary time for the reason that Fifties, because the nation confronts an ageing inhabitants and a dwindling pension funds.

The highest legislative physique on Friday accredited proposals to boost the statutory retirement age from 50 to 55 for ladies in blue-collar jobs, and from 55 to 58 for females in white-collar jobs.

Males will see a rise from 60 to 63.

China’s present retirement ages are among the many lowest on this planet.

In response to the plan handed on Friday, the change will set in from 1 January 2025, with the respective retirement ages raised each few months over the following 15 years, stated Chinese language state media.

Retiring earlier than the statutory age won’t be allowed, state information company Xinhua reported, though individuals can delay their retirement by not more than three years.

Beginning 2030, workers will even need to make extra contributions to the social safety system so as to obtain pensions. By 2039, they must clock 20 years of contributions to entry their pensions.

The state-run Chinese language Academy of Social Sciences stated in 2019 that the nation’s primary state pension fund will run out of cash by 2035 – and that was an estimate earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic, which hit China’s financial system exhausting.

The plan to boost retirement ages and regulate the pension coverage was based mostly on “a complete evaluation of the typical life expectancy, well being situations, the inhabitants construction, the extent of training and workforce provide in China,” Xinhua reported.

However the announcement has drawn some scepticism and discontent on the Chinese language web.

“Within the subsequent 10 years, there will likely be one other invoice that may delay retirement till we’re 80,” one consumer wrote on a Chinese language social media web site Weibo.

“What a depressing 12 months! Center-aged staff are confronted with pay cuts and raised retirement ages. Those that are unemployed discover it more and more troublesome to get jobs,” one other chimed in.

Others stated that they had anticipated the announcement.

“This was anticipated, there is not a lot to debate.

“Males in most European international locations retire when they’re 65 or 67, whereas girls do at 60. That is going to be the development in our nation as properly,” one Weibo consumer stated.

China’s big inhabitants has fallen for a second consecutive 12 months in 2023 as its beginning charge continues to say no.

In the meantime, its common life expectancy has risen to 78.2 years, officers stated earlier this 12 months. In response to the World Well being Group, nearly a 3rd of China’s inhabitants – about 402 million individuals – will likely be aged over 60 by 2040, up from 254 million in 2019.

A slowing financial system, shrinking authorities advantages and a decades-long one-child coverage have created a creeping demographic disaster in China, our China correspondent Laura Bicker wrote earlier this 12 months.

China’s pension pot is working dry and the nation is working out of time to construct sufficient of a fund to take care of the rising variety of aged.

Over the following decade, about 300 million individuals, who’re presently aged 50 to 60, are set to go away the Chinese language workforce. That is the nation’s largest age group, almost equal to the scale of the US inhabitants.

So who will take care of them? The reply relies on the place you go and who you ask.

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