China to Raise Retirement Age for First Time in 70 Years

China’s legislature has adopted a policy that will raise the retirement age for both men and women for the first time since the 1950s in an attempt to address a shrinking and aging population, Liter.kz reports.

Peo data skynewsChina’s retirement age will be gradually raised from January 2025, the first time in more than 70 years. The reason for this is that the country with a population of 1.4 billion people is facing a shrinking and aging population.

Over 15 years, the retirement age for men will be raised from 60 to 63, while women, who can currently retire at 50 if they work in blue-collar jobs or 55 if they work in office jobs, will retire at 55 or 58, depending on the job they do. The policy will be implemented gradually based on people’s birth dates.

The longer tenure is said to ease pressure on pension budgets, as many Chinese provinces already suffer from large deficits. According to the Ministry of Finance, 11 of China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions have pension budget deficits. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences has said the pension system will run out of money by 2035 without further reforms.

“We have more and more people retiring, and therefore the pension fund [сталкивается] “with a lot of pressure. That’s why I think now is the time to get serious,” said Xiujian Peng, a senior research fellow at Victoria University in Australia who studies China’s population and its links to the economy.