Senior citizens chat at a retirement home in Beijing. (Photo/Xinhua)
To cope with increasing pressure from a graying population, the Chinese government is setting a timetable for postponing the retirement age, while many local civil servants are experimenting with a different path.
China has 210 million people aged 60 or above, accounting for 15.5 percent of the population. It is estimated that by 2020, this section of society will make up 19.3 percent of the population, and 38.6 percent in 2050.
This will weigh heavy on government endowment insurance expenditure, as individual pensions have increased from 700 yuan (110.36 U.S. dollars) 10 years ago to more than 2,000 yuan currently.
At the end of 2015, about 850 million Chinese had pension plans, but prospects are bleak as revenue has grown slower than expenses to the extent that there are are financial deficits in some provinces.
Yin Weimin, human resources and social security minister, in February announced China was raising the retirement age to offset some of these pressures.
Current retirement age is 60 for men, 55 for female white-collar workers and 50 for female blue-collar employees.
LOCAL PRACTICE
In recent years, central authorities have employed various approaches to streamlining government organs, cutting human costs and boosting efficiency.
One way is to giving functionaries the liberty to retire early, with a full pension plus some monetary compensation.
For example, nearly 100 officials in one county in Hunan Province, central China, have applied for early retirement. Last year the officials aged over 50 or who had worked for the county for more than 20 years were invited to retire or transfer to non-leadership positions. They will receive their full pension plus an annual allowance of 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, more money than they'd make in their current positions.
