China piles extra work on weary youth to ease pension crisis

China raises retirement age to address pension system strain, but risks discouraging young workers and demographic decline.

China's decision to raise the retirement age will give a brief boost to its strained pension system but risks further discouraging weary young workers and cannot arrest long-term demographic decline, experts say.

The ruling Communist Party last week announced a gradual increase in the statutory retirement age starting next year — rising from 60 to 63 for men, from 55 to 58 for white-collar women workers, and from 50 to 55 for blue-collar female employees.

The government said the changes would bring a system that has changed little since the 1950s into line with decades of improvements in public health, life expectancy and education, and help society adapt to a shrinking population and workforce.

Analysts told AFP that growing concerns over the sustainability of the nationwide pension system pushed Beijing to act.

"The pension system is under a lot of strain," said Zhao Litao, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore's East Asian Institute.

"It is... clear to the leadership that the stakes for postponing the reform [were] getting increasingly high," he said.

China's retirement age had been among the youngest in the world, and officials have discussed raising it for more than a decade.