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China will gradually raise its legal retirement age for the first time in decades, the official Xinhua news agency said Friday, in the world’s second-most populous country facing a serious demographic crisis.
China’s population is set to decline for the second year in a row in 2023, threatening serious problems for the economy, health system and social security, as the number of elderly people grows and the number of births declines.
The agency quoted a government decision that the legal retirement age for men will be gradually raised to 63 years compared to 60 years currently, and for women it will be raised from 50 to 55 years, or from 55 to 58 years, depending on the type of work they do.
The agency explained that raising the retirement age will extend to 15 years starting in 2025.
She stressed that the new rules will also allow employees “to delay their retirement to a later date if they reach an agreement with their employers.”
In addition, the minimum number of years of work qualifying for a retirement pension will increase from 15 to 20 years.
Raising the retirement age is an “inevitable choice,” Mu Rong, director of the China Academy of Labor and Social Security, told the People’s Daily.
He added that this change “will lead to stabilizing the labor market participation rate and maintaining the momentum and vitality of economic and social development.”
