HONG KONG: China’s top legislative body has approved a draft proposal to raise the retirement age in the country, the official Xinhua news agency said on Friday (Sep 13), accelerating a move towards changing decades-old labour laws and easing economic pressures stemming from a shrinking workforce.
Effective Jan 1, 2025, China will raise the retirement age for men to 63.
For women in white-collar work, it will be raised to 58 while women who work in factories will have a retirement age of 55.
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 current retirement age is 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.
China’s population has fallen for two consecutive years and is expected to continue falling for decades, piling pressure on a rapidly ageing 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.
