China is moving ahead to raise its retirement age

Ōtautahi - Many countries face similar issues and are also raising retirement ages. New Zealand does not have an official retirement age.

However, most people retire at 65. It is the age when most superannuation plans begin to pay out your life savings. NZ super is the taxpayer funded superannuation plan and pays out fortnightly to people aged 65 and over.

The changes in China are in response to ageing populations and declining birth rates. It plan to gradually delay the country’s legal retirement age has managed to unify a wide variety of people around a single sentiment: they don't like it.

As a country looking for ways to address the fact that it may not have enough workers paying into its pension system to support an ageing population, however, China is far from alone.

In more than half of the 38 OECD member states, some of the most prosperous nations on the planet, normal retirement age is expected to increase by the time young people now entering the workforce depart during their silver years, according to one projection.

In some cases the step up may be stark; young men in Turkey can plan on retiring at 65 instead of the mandated age of 52 as of 2020 while in Denmark men whose grandfathers could retire at 65.5 years of age may have to wait until they’re 74.

In March, China took its first step towards raising its current retirement ages 60 for men, 55 for white-collar women and 50 for blue-collar women.

Birth rates have been in decline in much of the world; one study projected the global population will peak in 2064, then decline by nearly one billion over the next 36 years. At the same time, progress has been made on reducing poverty, and the global middle class has been adding about 50 million people every year, at least, pre-pandemic.

Years of life expectancy at birth in China jumped from 71 to 77 in the first two decades of this century alone – not quite as high as the 85 years reached by Japan (up from 81 in 2000), but needle-moving, nonetheless.

Despite its recent declines in life expectancy, the US also has an ageing workforce; last month, a particularly-dedicated National Park Service ranger retired a few months shy of her 101st birthday.