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Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
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Graying of China brings grave risks
By Ben Blanchard |
April 23, 2009, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
CHINA faces a great challenge to its social stability and economic growth from a population that is aging rapidly, and it must address the problem by building a stronger pension system and taking other measures, a report released yesterday said.
The US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that by 2050 China would have more than 438 million people older than 60, with over 100 million of them 80 and above.
The country will have just 1.6 working-age adults to support every person age 60 and above, compared with 7.7 in 1975.
"The 'premature aging' of China's population ... poses broader challenges that reach far beyond retirement policy," the authors of the report wrote.
"It threatens to impose a rising burden on the young, slow economic and living standard growth and become a socially destabilizing force in a country where the stresses of rapid modernization are already straining the civic fabric."
China's population growth has slowed over the past three decades since the introduction of a one-child policy for most couples, but people are now living longer due to rising living standards that have followed rapid economic growth.
China is ill-prepared to cope with its graying population, because of an underfunded state pension system and shrinking family sizes that remove a traditional layer of support for elders, as well as reducing the number of workers who can support them, experts said.
"China's age wave is arriving in a society which is still in the midst of development," said one of the report's authors, Richard Jackson.
The country is building a social safety net to replace the cradle-to-grave security once offered by state-owned enterprises.
The central government spent 276.16 billion yuan (US$40.4 billion) on social welfare and employment in 2008, 20 percent more than it did in 2007, according to state media reports.
The central government has also announced a 10 percent rise in pensions for retired workers.
Still, less than one-third of China's total work force gets any kind of pension coverage at present, the report said, and if the government does not take strong steps retirees will face a difficult old age.
China should guarantee a minimum pension for all old people, which may be expensive in the short term but would have long-term benefits, the report argued.
"Without an effective retirement policy, it is difficult to envision a prosperous, long-term future for China," according to the document.
The US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies warned that by 2050 China would have more than 438 million people older than 60, with over 100 million of them 80 and above.
The country will have just 1.6 working-age adults to support every person age 60 and above, compared with 7.7 in 1975.
"The 'premature aging' of China's population ... poses broader challenges that reach far beyond retirement policy," the authors of the report wrote.
"It threatens to impose a rising burden on the young, slow economic and living standard growth and become a socially destabilizing force in a country where the stresses of rapid modernization are already straining the civic fabric."
China's population growth has slowed over the past three decades since the introduction of a one-child policy for most couples, but people are now living longer due to rising living standards that have followed rapid economic growth.
China is ill-prepared to cope with its graying population, because of an underfunded state pension system and shrinking family sizes that remove a traditional layer of support for elders, as well as reducing the number of workers who can support them, experts said.
"China's age wave is arriving in a society which is still in the midst of development," said one of the report's authors, Richard Jackson.
The country is building a social safety net to replace the cradle-to-grave security once offered by state-owned enterprises.
The central government spent 276.16 billion yuan (US$40.4 billion) on social welfare and employment in 2008, 20 percent more than it did in 2007, according to state media reports.
The central government has also announced a 10 percent rise in pensions for retired workers.
Still, less than one-third of China's total work force gets any kind of pension coverage at present, the report said, and if the government does not take strong steps retirees will face a difficult old age.
China should guarantee a minimum pension for all old people, which may be expensive in the short term but would have long-term benefits, the report argued.
"Without an effective retirement policy, it is difficult to envision a prosperous, long-term future for China," according to the document.
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