Editors Note: Information for the first section of the article was gathered from various China Daily reports and a report on the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council’s official website. Information for the second section of the article was gathered from a People’s Daily report on a new pension program in rural areas. The third section is a translated and edited version of a brief article from China News Service, which summarizes the results of a recent survey that ranked China’s "best" cities to retire in based on various criteria. 

According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, by the end of 2009 China’s senior citizen population was 167 million strong, accounting for nearly 1/8 of China’s total population. Within the next ten years, that number is expected to increase to 248 million, and by 2050, experts have predicted that one in three Chinese will be a senior citizen. With such a rapidly growing elderly population, it is no wonder that retirement, pensions, moving and other "elderly" related questions are frequently discussed in China.

What is the retirement age in China?

Determining the retirement age for a person in China is a bit complicated. Currently, China’s official policy differentiates retirement age based both on gender and employment type. For managerial personnel and technicians, regulations stipulate that the male retirement age is 60 and the female retirement age is 55; for laborers, regulations stipulate that the male retirement age is 55 and the female retirement age is 50.

In recent years, the retirement policy has come under fire for a number of reasons. Some experts have called for a raise for the retirement age as a means to alleviate some of the current strains on the National Pension Fund (simply put, the longer a person is employed, the less time they receive a pension). In 2006, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, after studying the feasibility of increasing the retirement age, decided that current conditions were not conducive to making the plan work. It has been suggested that the worsening unemployment situation (especially for the younger generation) might have influenced this decision. Interestingly enough, multiple studies and surveys over the past few years indicate that an overwhelming majority of Chinese are unwilling to "postpone their retirement" for various reasons.

Additionally, in 2011, an official report published on the National Working Committee on Children and Women under the State Council’s website noted that any policy that differentiates retirement age based on gender may cause employers to be reluctant to invest in education or on-the-job training for female employees, since the "return" on their investment is five years less than that of a male employee. With less training and experience, women are less likely than men to be promoted.

The recent news that foreigners will now be required to contribute to the Chinese Social Security system is in all likelihood the official response to alleviating the above mentioned stress on the National Pension fund without increasing the retirement age.

Life after retirement

An often overlooked consequence of the One Child Policy, enacted 30 years earlier as a means to curb China’s out-of-control population increase, is its "diminishing returns" of children acting as a social safety net for their aging parents. While it would be incorrect to say that senior citizens have ever enjoyed an easy and relaxing retirement in China, this rapidly changing demographic has turned what was once  "ten young Chinese caring for one elderly person"  (as recently as the early 1990s!) into  "a young couple caring for their four parents and a child", commonly referred to as the "4-2-1" problem.

Nowhere has life after retirement been more challenging than in the rural areas of China, where seniors have been additionally affected by their children moving far away to the big cities to earn a living. While these children do their best to send whatever money they can and visit once or twice a year, the isolation and meagre amount of money that rural seniors live on means that it is rare for them to truly enjoy the "golden years" of their life.

Beginning in 2009, the government began testing out a new old-age pension program aimed directly at providing these rural seniors with a bit of "economic independence". Under the current program, a retired couple will receive about 1,300 yuan per year, or 55 yuan per person per month. While it may not seem like a lot of money, it has proven to be quite popular so far, with about 100 million people joining the program by the end of 2010.

What are the best cities for retirement in China?

In early September, the Chinese edition of Fortune magazine released its "2011 Retirement Guide" for Chinese, which included the results from its "China's Most Suitable Cities For Retirement " survey. For conducting the survey, Fortune China selected the 70 most representative cities in China based on population size and popularity. It then pulled 30,000 "high-ranking" people from its reader database to be the survey respondents. The respondents then ranked each of these 70 cities according to the criteria of "Quality of Life", "Social Welfare", "City and Natural Environment", "Social Environment", "Proficiency of City Services" and "Happiness". The results of the survey: the top five Chinese cities for retirement are Hangzhou, Chengdu, Qingdao, Dalian and Sanya.

Source: chinanews
 

Related links
A Need for Change? China’s Aging Population and the One Child Policy
Migrant Workers: Separate and Unequal
Retirement Kingdom? The Pros and Cons of Expat Retirement in China

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Keywords: Senior citizens in China problems elderly Chinese problems retirement age in China life after retirement in China best cities for retirement in China