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China’s professional women challenge the world’s lowest retirement age, while Beijing faces a balance between the needs of an aging working population and youth unemployment.
Judicial records reveal that Chinese women have sued their employers more than 1,000 times since 2019 for leaving work at age 50, while their colleagues in managerial positions can stay until age 55. In the decade before 2019, there were fewer than 800 such cases.
China’s labor standards require women in certain professions to retire earlier than others, but the law is vague in specifying which groups belong to politics. In the United States, full retirement for men and women begins at age 66.
Rising retirement disputes highlight China’s demographic dilemma: the country the population is aging and their birth rate decreases, creating an economic time bomb. At the same time, the government is striving to achieve ambitious goals of economic growth, as state pension funds are dangerously low.
“It is true that our retirement rules have led to a waste of human capital and pressure on the pension system,” said a Beijing-based government adviser who asked not to be identified. “But the authorities also don’t want older people to compete with young people for jobs that are still missing.”
China established its retirement system in the early 1950s, when Beijing set the mandatory age for leaving the workforce at 50 for most women, 55 for women with managerial or special skills roles, and 60 for to men regardless of their position.
According to analysts, the deal was then a good match for a country where citizens rarely lived more than 50 years and women had six children on average.
“We made women, especially ordinary women, retire earlier so they could spend more time caring for the family,” said Yuan Xin, a demographer and government adviser in Tianjin.
Since then, the life expectancy of Chinese women has risen to nearly 80 years and births have plummeted, despite the relaxation of family planning policies. The population of China it grew at its slowest rate in decades from ten years to 2020.
These factors, combined with improved education and increased income, have motivated more women focus on your careers and accumulate retirement savings.
China’s underfunded pension system would also be relieved by workers delaying retirement, while Beijing struggles to achieve it to support the aging population of the nation.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an official think tank, said in a report that it hoped the state-backed pension fund would run out of money as early as 2035. “There needs to be a new late retirement policy as soon as possible. as possible, ”said Fang Lianquan, one of the study’s authors.
Despite ambiguous Chinese labor laws and the resistance of many professionals who want to work until the age of 55, the early retirement policy has remained unchanged.
China’s retirement system was established in the 1950s, when few lived after age 50 and women had six children on average © AP
In eastern Jiangsu Province, Wang Yun, 51, lost a lawsuit this year against his employer, a retailer where he worked as a marketing manager, for retiring at age 50. The case disintegrated after the defendant filed his new Revised Charter, which limited executive positions to executives or more.
“I’ve spent almost a decade managing people and I have the strength and willingness to keep my job,” Wang said. “Too bad the court didn’t hear me.”
Another major obstacle to changing China’s retirement policy is the country’s youth. Although the country’s working-age population is declining precipitously, many younger workers are struggling to find work.
The unemployment rate for Chinese adults under the age of 24 exceeds 13%, compared to a national average of about 5%. This shortage of jobs would be exacerbated if older workers postponed retirement.
“The Chinese economy does not allow both young and old to have full employment,” said an adviser to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, which sets the retirement policy. “We can only prioritize a group of people.”
Another barrier to raising the retirement age is the large number of adult women, led by low-end workers, who want to enjoy pension benefits before decades of working in factories or office cabinets.
In the northeastern city of Fushun, Wang Feng, a 50-year-old office manager, retired this month even though Chinese law allowed him to work five more years.
“I’ve been busy for over three decades and I haven’t felt good in the last few years,” Wang said. “I don’t want to work anymore.”
You Jun, vice minister of human resources and social security, said in February that China would extend the retirement age “gradually,” but did not offer a timetable.
Government advisers said reforms could begin next year when the official retirement age for both men and women would rise by a few months.
However, this will do little to alleviate the concerns of many professional women. “Maybe my daughter’s generation will have more freedom to choose when to retire,” said Liu Hui, a 49-year-old marketing associate in Shanghai. “I probably won’t have that luck.”
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