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interface news reporter | zhao meng

interface news editor | liu haichuan

after more than 10 years of preparation, the policy of delaying retirement is about to be introduced.

on september 10, 2024, the 11th session of the standing committee of the 14th national people's congress held its first plenary session in the great hall of the people in beijing in the morning.the meeting reviewed the proposal of the state council to submit for deliberation the draft decision on the implementation of a gradual delay in the statutory retirement age.

although the final policy plan has not yet been announced, several demography experts and people close to policy making interviewed by jiemian news said that the delayed retirement plan will not be a "one-size-fits-all" plan set at a certain age, and it is likely to adopt a gradual retirement plan. according to convention, such policy decisions will be announced after the standing committee meeting ends. this standing committee meeting will end on september 13.

the progressive retirement plan is a policy that aims to gradually extend the retirement age in order to cope with the aging of the population, improve the sustainability of the pension system and maintain the vitality of the labor market. rather than raising the retirement age significantly at one time, this plan adopts a gentle and gradual approach, extending the retirement age by only a few months every year or every few years until the predetermined new retirement age target is reached.

in addition, the progressive plan allows individuals to choose their retirement time according to their own circumstances, increasing the flexibility of retirement policies. moreover, considering factors such as different types of work, gender, and health conditions, there may be different strategies for delaying retirement.

a person close to policy-making revealed that the final plan will almost certainly take a gradual approach. "i think a time point will be set, and from this time point on, the retirement age for everyone will be extended for a period of time every year." "in the end (decision makers) may make an app or a form for everyone to check their retirement time."

looking back at history, china's retirement age policy was formulated in the 1950s. yuan xin, professor at the school of economics of nankai university and vice president of the china population association, pointed out in an interview with jiemian news that when the policy was formulated, china's life expectancy was only in its 40s, but now it is over 78 years old. life expectancy is constantly increasing, but the time to retire from the working age has not changed.

in 1951, china formulated the labor insurance regulations, which stated that female workers and cadres should retire at the age of 50, and male workers and cadres should retire at the age of 60. for some special types of work, the retirement age could be 5 years lower. in 1953, the regulations were revised, but the retirement age did not change. in 1978, the state raised the retirement age for female cadres by 5 years, meaning that female workers retired at the age of 50, female cadres retired at the age of 55, and men still retired at the age of 60.

globally, japan has extended its retirement age from 60 to 65 over the past 20 years, and encouraged companies to extend it to 70. most developed countries in europe also have retirement ages of 63 to 65, with some countries delaying it to 67. in today's world of longevity, delaying retirement is also a common trend around the world.

another change is the age of entering the labor market. in the third census in 1982, the average years of education for people over 15 years old was 5.3 years. by the seventh census in 2020, it had risen to 9.9 years, extending by at least four and a half years. now college has become universal education, and the gross enrollment rate of colleges has reached 57.8%. more and more people have received better education, especially those who have received college and graduate education. generally, they start working at the age of 23-24 or even 30. the age of entering the labor market has been pushed back, but the time of exiting the labor market has not changed. relatively speaking, the age group used by the population to create wealth has actually shortened.

yuan xin said that the retirement age policy formulated in the 1950s was entirely out of consideration for families and women. because at that time, most people in society were engaged in heavy physical labor. at that time, each family had an average of more than 6 children, but now it only has about 1.3 children, and women are generally more educated than men. there are also far fewer opportunities for physical labor now than then.

yuan xin said in an interview with nan fang daily that delaying retirement is also a consideration to ease the pressure on pensions. the current pressure on pension accounts is partly due to the mismatch between system design and demographic changes. in the future, the pension system may face a severe test of funding shortages. delaying retirement is one of the strategies to alleviate this problem.

delaying retirement has been on the agenda for a long time, but the specific progress has been slow. in fact, as early as 2013, in the "decision of the cpc central committee on several major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reform", delaying retirement was proposed. at that time, the proposal was to study the gradual postponement of the statutory retirement age. in 2021, the "14th five-year plan" clearly stated that the statutory retirement age should be gradually postponed.

by the end of 2023, the number of people aged 60 and above in my country will reach 297 million, accounting for 21.1%; the number of people aged 65 and above will reach 217 million, accounting for 15.4%, and china has entered a moderately aging society. demographic experts predict that by around 2035, the number of people aged 60 and above will exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30%, entering a severe aging stage. by the middle of this century, the size and proportion of china's elderly population will reach a peak.

"with the continued aging of the population, the contradiction between supply and demand of elderly care services has become more prominent." zhao zhong, dean of the school of labor and human resources at renmin university of china, said in an interview with xinhua news agency that aging is a challenge faced by all countries in the world. although delaying the retirement age cannot completely solve the aging problem, it can increase the labor participation rate and allow older people who are willing, capable and qualified to choose to continue to work.

at the other end of the spectrum, china's working-age population (16 to 59 years old) remains large. according to the national bureau of statistics, by the end of 2023, my country's working-age population will be about 860 million, accounting for 61.3% of the total population.

however, from the trend point of view, the number of china's working-age population has been decreasing year by year since 2012. "from the structural point of view, the proportion of young people and older people in the working-age population has shown a trend of decreasing and increasing. this means that in the labor market, the population with the strongest ability to match jobs tends to decrease relatively," zhao zhong said.

zhao zhong believes that gradually delaying retirement can encourage willing older workers to become an important force in enriching the future labor force and smooth the decline in the working-age population.

yuan xin said that although the 14th five-year plan proposed to gradually delay the statutory retirement age, the policy was not immediately introduced, which may be related to the high employment pressure and employment "involution" among young people. but since it has been included in the plan, implementation is only a matter of time.

now, after more than 10 years of preparation, the time is ripe. yuan xin said that delaying retirement can reduce the pressure on pensions and increase the labor supply. "but it can only reduce it, it can not change the reality that pensions will eventually "bottom out." he emphasized that from another perspective, china is currently in a stage of low-age aging, which means that in the next 30 years, we have actually opened a time window for delaying retirement.

yang chenggang, professor at southwestern university of finance and economics and vice president of the china population association, pointed out that the delay in retirement in european countries is more to increase the labor supply because their labor force is relatively scarce. but china is different. there is no shortage of labor supply in the next few decades. but from the perspective of the labor market, what is needed is not the elderly labor force, but the high-quality young and middle-aged labor force. therefore, the main purpose of delaying retirement is to solve the problem of pension payment. but he said that delaying retirement is not a good solution. fundamentally, it still depends on the injection of state-owned assets to expand the capital pool.