May 2021
13May

China. Shanghai raising residents’ old age pensions

Shanghai is raising old age pensions, the city’s Human Resources and Social Security Bureau announced on Tuesday. Retirees covered by the social security fund for employees will get a 3 percent increase in their monthly pension from last year and an additional 70 yuan (US$10.8) a month. Women over 60 and men over 65 will get an extra 20 yuan a month per person. People included in city residents' basic pension scheme will have their pensions increased by 100 yuan to...

May 13, 2021
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11May

Why China and east Asia’s ageing population threatens global Covid recovery

For many years China watchers have been concerned that its ageing population will slow economic growth, causing social as well as political problems. So today’s census data may be an alarm bell for leaders in Beijing. But it is not just China that is witnessing this trajectory. Most countries in east Asia, even without fertility control policies such as China’s one-child or two-child policies, share the same predicament: how to continue economic growth while encouraging people to have more children? This...

May 11, 2021
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April 2021
28Apr

A Graying China May Have to Put Off Retirement. Workers Aren’t Happy.

For Meng Shan, a 48-year-old urban management worker in the Chinese city of Nanchang, retirement can’t come soon enough. Read also Multi-pillar pension systems can help EU address the ageing of European societies Mr. Meng, who is the equivalent of a low-level, unarmed law-enforcement official, often has to chase down unlicensed street vendors, a task he finds physically and emotionally taxing. Pay is low. Retirement, even on a meager government pension, would finally offer a break. Read also Morneau Shepell releases the...

April 28, 2021
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21Apr

China’s Coming Pro-Natalist Campaign

Birth rates in China are crashing. Last year, they fell to the lowest level since Mao Zedong founded the modern Chinese state in 1949. This poses immense long-term challenges for everything from pensions to labor markets. Beijing’s leaders realize this. This is why China’s notorious “one-child policy” was loosened nationwide to a two-child one back in 2015. Read also Asia Is Increasing Its ESG Asset Appetite But the next step will be far more dramatic. After decades of attempting to limit births,...

April 21, 2021
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March 2021
31Mar

World’s Top Pension Fund Faces Moment of Truth on China Debt

The world’s largest pension pot will soon have to choose between political sensitivities and cold hard returns. With FTSE Russell set to proceed with a plan to add Chinese debt to its benchmark global bond index from October, Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund will now have to decide whether to put its money into China’s sovereign debt, or risk lower returns elsewhere. Read also Thailand plans new retirement plan to support its aging population Investing Japanese pension money in Chinese government debt...

March 31, 2021
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25Mar

Do public pensions matter to marriage? Evidence from China

By Hua Chen, Zining Liu, Xiaoxu Yang This article examines the role of public pensions on the marriage market based on China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Firstly, we investigate if the extensive margin of public pensions, i.e., whether to participate in public pensions or not, has a significant effect through Difference-in-Difference (DID). The results indicate that public pensions have a significant effect on marriage for both urban and rural residents, and the gender and income heterogeneity of the...

March 25, 2021
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18Mar

China to Raise Retirement Age to Offset Funding Shortfall  

China is the world’s most populated country but decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, shortage of social security funds and a comparatively young retirement age is forcing Beijing to act in the face of a shrinking work force. Read also China. Power or Profits: Beijing’s Pension Dilemma Analysts estimate the country’s labor force will lose 35 million workers over the next five years and that during that same period, the number of citizens eligible for retirement will surge to more...

March 18, 2021
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12Mar

China. Power or Profits: Beijing’s Pension Dilemma

When it comes to China’s economy, the sexy issue is the annual growth target for gross domestic product or carbon emissions or corporate debt defaults or the property market. But only one topic is really important for the longer-term survival of the Communist Party regime: pensions. And the party seems to know it. Read also India. NPS Scheme: PFRDA empowers National Pension System subscribers by offering this facility – Check benefits That’s why pension reform popped up, albeit in attenuated form,...

March 12, 2021
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09Mar

China Plans New State Pension Firm as Population Ages

China plans to create a new state-owned pension firm to tackle a massive funding gap as the world’s largest population struggles to finance retirement despite decades of economic growth. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission is mulling a national pension company with state-owned banks and insurers as shareholders, according to people familiar with the discussions. Details such as the shareholding structure and size of investment are still being hammered out, they said, declining to be identified as the plan...

March 9, 2021
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04Mar

Fraudsters prey on the fears of China’s aging population.

Shady retirement home and investment schemes have cheated China’s rapidly aging population out of hundreds of millions of dollars, spurring more than a thousand criminal cases in recent years. In a society that traditionally relied on family members to take care of elderly parents, fraudsters have been able to prey on fears that changing social norms and scarce resources will leave older people bereft, report Alexandra Stevenson and Cao Li for The New York Times. By 2025, more than 300 million...

March 4, 2021
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