Retirement age delay to apply gradually

The retirement age delay policy will be carried out gradually with different occupations and will first be implemented with white-collar workers, China Times reported on Thursday.

With increasing pressure on pensions, delaying the retirement age is inevitable. However, the reform will not be applied across the board immediately as it will have different impacts on different social groups. Those who work in mainly intellectual positions with high technologies will be the pioneers for the reform, as this group mostly wants to extend the retirement age and can bring significant economic benefits to the society. Meanwhile, those working in physically difficult jobs will retire at 50 if female and 60 if male, in line with previous policy.

Publicly available data show the pension fund can grow by 4 billion yuan ($656.5 million), save 16 billion yuan in spending and decrease 20 billion yuan in fund shortage if the retirement age is extended by a year.