China lawmakers review proposal to gradually lift retirement age

CHINA’S top legislature is reviewing a draft decision on gradually raising the statutory retirement age in a move that would slow the shrinking of the working-age population.

The Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress is holding a meeting this week in Beijing to review a raft of legislative Bills, and upping the retirement age is one of the items on the agenda, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday (Sep 10). However, the report did not specify new target age ranges or other details in the proposal.

In July, officials in Beijing announced after a party conclave that the retirement age will rise in a “voluntary, flexible manner,” without giving more details. The retirement age for white-collar workers has been kept at 60 for men and 55 for women for more than four decades, putting China at the lower end of the spectrum worldwide.

Raising that threshold would reduce the speed at which the working-age population shrinks and buy Beijing more time to figure out how to boost birth rates. And while raising the retirement age is generally unpopular in many nations, the backlash in China reveals deeper anxieties about the employment situation in the world’s second-largest economy. BLOOMBERG