The standing committee of China's top legislative body, the National People's Congress, earlier this week reviewed a draft decision of the Communist Party on gradually raising the statutory retirement age, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Raising the official retirement age will be a key step towards changing decades-old labour laws and easing economic pressures stemming from a shrinking workforce.
Draft changes to the law to adjust the retirement age are expected to be published to get public feedback in the coming weeks, reported Reuters.
The review followed a resolution, adopted at the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in July, which outlined the task of refining the country’s population development strategy in response to an aging population and a declining birth rate.
The retirement age is now 60 for men, about six years below that in most developed economies, while for women in white-collar work, it is 55, and 50 for women who work in factories.
Average life expectancy in China has risen to 78.6 years in 2023, Xinhua reported in August, citing a report released by the National Health Commission, compared with 57 years in 1957.
National health authorities expect the cohort of those aged 60 and older to rise from 280m to more than 400m by 2035. The dependency ratio of the elderly population in China reached 22.5 % in 2023, an increase of 9.4 percentage points compared to 10 years ago. This has led to a reduction in the labour supply and created pressure on the continued disbursement of pensions.
Eleven of China's 31 provincial-level jurisdictions are running pension budget deficits, finance ministry data show. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035.