China's
policymakers this week assessed an official plan to delay the country's
retirement age, among the world's lowest, marking a key step to address its
shrinking working population.
The discussion
by National People Congress members took place at the 11th meeting of China's
Standing Committee meeting in Beijing, the official news agency Xinhua reported
on Tuesday.
China said in
July it would gradually
raise its retirement age to allow people to work longer, to
abate pressure on pension budgets with many provinces already reeling from
large deficits.
The retirement
age is now 60 for men, about six years below that in most developed economies,
while for women in white-collar work it is 55, and 50 for women who work in
factories.
Reform is
urgent with life expectancy in China rising to 78 years by 2021 from about 44
years in 1960, and projected to exceed 80 years by 2050.
"It is an
inevitable choice for China to adapt to the new normal of population
development," Mo Rong, Director of the Chinese Academy of Labour and
Social Sciences told the People's Daily.
China's population
has fallen for two consecutive years and is expected to continue falling for
decades, piling
pressure on a rapidly aging population.
National health
authorities expect the cohort of those aged 60 and older to rise from 280
million to more than 400 million by 2035, equal to the entire current
populations of Britain and the United States combined.
Each Chinese
retiree is now supported by the contributions of five workers, half of what it
was a decade ago and trending towards 4-to-1 in 2030 and 2-to-1 in 2050.