March 2023
14Mar

China to raise retirement age to deal with aging population – media

China is planning to raise its retirement age gradually and in phases to cope with the country's rapidly aging population, the state-backed Global Times said on Tuesday, citing a senior expert from China's Ministry of Human Resources. Jin Weigang, president of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security Sciences, said China was eyeing a "progressive, flexible and differentiated path to raising the retirement age", meaning that it would be delayed initially by a few months, which would be subsequently...

March 14, 2023
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06Mar

China’s big dilemma: What to do about an aging nation

China’s population decline, which the Chinese government officially confirmed in January, has led many observers to wonder if the country’s current demographic trends threaten its stability. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s population shrank last year for the first time in 60 years, nine years earlier than government projections had anticipated. The fertility rate (births per woman) fell to 1.0-1.1, well below the official forecast of 1.8. Most notably, the number of births dropped sharply to 9.56 million,...

March 6, 2023
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February 2023
28Feb

Over 24 million individual pension accounts opened in China

More than 24 million individual pension accounts have been opened since China announced the implementation of its private pension plan to supplement the country's old-age insurance mechanism in November last year, the country's banking and insurance regulator said. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said that the banking and insurance institutions have been introducing savings, wealth management products, commercial pension insurance, and other financial products for individual pension account holders. Under the private pension plan, applicants can open their own...

February 28, 2023
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13Feb

China. Legislative steps being taken to protect elderly

China's legislature has accelerated the creation of legislation aimed at the elderly over the past few years in a bid to bolster protection and respond to a rapidly aging population. The latest National Bureau of Statistics data showed that by the end of last year, China's population aged 60 and above exceeded 280 million, making up 19.8 percent of the national total. The National Health Commission estimates that this figure will grow to over 400 million by 2035, accounting for more...

February 13, 2023
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08Feb

China to offer free fertility treatment in bid to boost record low birth rate

China is planning to offer free fertility treatment to citizens under its national insurance scheme in a bid to reverse its plummeting birth rate. The National Healthcare Security Administration said on Friday it would extend its coverage to help shoulder the costs for families trying to conceive. It said the new coverage would include assisted reproductive technology (ART) techniques and also cover labor analgesia to ease pain in childbirth. The most commonly performed ART procedure is in vitro fertilization (IVF). The administration...

February 8, 2023
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January 2023
26Jan

China. ‘Silver’ economy grows with aging population

After saying goodbye to her grandchild at the school gates, Hu Chunmei started to think of ways to pass the day. Hu migrated from her home village in Hubei province to Beijing to help her daughter with child-rearing about eight years ago. Since her granddaughter started school in August, she knew she had to adjust to a new routine. "It's much harder than I thought. I tried guangchangwu — a style of dancing as a group in public — with friends...

January 26, 2023
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23Jan

Switzerland. Thousands of retired seniors falling into poverty

In Switzerland a huge wealth gap exists among retirees. While most senior citizens can comfortably make ends meet, one in five is living either below or close to the poverty line. Some 50,000 pensioners have no financial cushion to offset their low income. Bernard and Pierrette Apothéloz are both in their early 70s. With their meagre pensions and no savings or additional benefits, the couple often struggle to pay their bills. Because of their financial situation, they are unable to...

January 23, 2023
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23Jan

China: Unified pension management system ensures more equity

More Chinese people have access to coverage provided by the country's government-run basic old-age insurance, since the adoption of unified management of insurance funds, according to the authorities. China's basic old-age insurance covered 1.05bn people as of the end of 2022, 24.3m more than a year earlier, reported the Xinhua News Agency quoting data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. The country formally implemented the national unified management of basic old-age insurance funds for enterprise employees in January...

January 23, 2023
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20Jan

China’s going to have to figure out how to care for 400 million elderly people by 2040

China reached a pivotal moment this year, announcing on Tuesday that its population had, for the first time since the 1960s, shrunk. It's not just fewer people that China has to contend with. The country's planners have another mammoth challenge ahead: a rapidly aging population. The World Health Organization expects China to have more than 400 million people over the age of 60 by 2040, up from 254 million in 2019. That's nearly a third of its total population, compared to...

January 20, 2023
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17Jan

China’s Population Falls, Heralding a Demographic Crisis

The world’s most populous country has reached a pivotal moment: China’s population has begun to shrink, after a steady, yearslong decline in its birthrate that experts say is irreversible. The government said on Tuesday that 9.56 million people were born in China last year, while 10.41 million people died. It was the first time deaths had outnumbered births in China since the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s failed economic experiment that led to widespread famine and death in the 1960s. Chinese...

January 17, 2023
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