The 11th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress (NPC) held its first plenary meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on the morning of 10 July. The meeting deliberated on the State Council's proposal for deliberation on the draft decision on the implementation of the gradual postponement of the statutory retirement age.
Why delay retirement?
What are the changes in the degree of population aging in mainland China?
Let's take a look at the experts' interpretation
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Expert: The main purpose of the reform is to cope with the aging of the population
Both the 14th Five-Year Plan and the report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) clearly state that a gradual extension of the statutory retirement age will be implemented. In the 14th Five-Year Plan, "gradually postponing the statutory retirement age" is included in the chapter "Implementing the National Strategy to Actively Respond to Population Aging".
The "Resolution" of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) made arrangements for improving the population development support and service system, and proposed to "promote the gradual postponement of the statutory retirement age reform in a steady and orderly manner in accordance with the principles of voluntariness and flexibility". Experts say it also shows that the main purpose of the reform is to cope with the mainland's aging population.
Guan Bo, deputy director of the Social Strategic Planning Research Office of the China Macroeconomic Research Institute, said that the current population aging has become the most basic national condition, and in the context of high-quality population, it is urgent to further release the potential of social labor factor resources and promote the entire total factor productivity to a more appropriate level. Whether it is the extension of the life expectancy of the population, the improvement of the health level, especially the improvement of the productive capacity of society, and the way in which the labor force is combined with social production, there have been obvious changes in the past few decades, all of which provide objective conditions and policy possibilities for adjusting the corresponding policies.
Around 2035, the mainland will enter a stage of severe aging
In the 14th Five-Year Plan and the Resolution of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the content of "postponing the statutory retirement age" has been placed in the section related to population development. So, what are the changes in the overall population development and the degree of aging in the mainland?
In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the total population of the mainland was 540 million, and by 2023, the total population has reached 1.41 billion. While the overall population is increasing rapidly, population development has just crossed two important turning points.
First, from the perspective of population births, China will have a negative population growth from 2022 and will continue to grow in 2023.
Second, the proportion of people aged 65 and above in the total population reached 14.2% in 2021.
According to the general classification in the world, this marks the beginning of a moderate aging stage after China entered an aging society with an aging rate of 7% in 2000. It is predicted that around 2035, the number of elderly people aged 60 and above will exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30%, entering the stage of severe aging. By around 2050, the size and proportion of the elderly population in mainland China will reach a peak.
Zhao Zhong, dean of the School of Labor and Personnel of the Chinese People's University, said that after the statutory retirement age system was determined in the 50s of the 20th century, in fact, there has been no major adjustment or change, and the policy system formulated by the population situation and economic development at that time is out of touch with the current population structure and social and economic development.
In fact, an important reason for ageing comes from a positive change, which is the substantial increase in life expectancy of the population. In 2023, the average life expectancy of Chinese has reached 78.6 years, and the healthy life expectancy, that is, the number of years of survival in a healthy state, has also increased significantly. In addition, with the development of science and technology and the change of economic structure, the labor that purely relies on heavy physical labor is greatly reduced, and more knowledge-based and skill-based positions are available, which provides more possibilities for extending the working life.
Zhao Zhong, dean of the School of Labor and Personnel of the Chinese University of China, said that the increase in life expectancy means that the age at which you can continue to engage in production and business activities has also increased. Through institutional reforms, it is possible to increase the size of the country's labor force, which in fact plays a very important role in the socio-economic development of a country.
Source: CCTV News
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