A survey conducted on November 1, 2013 revealed that about 70% of Chinese people are against a proposal to increase the retirement age. The recent proposal has been made in order to improve the pension system in the country.
The country’s 11 cities were included in the survey and 1,062 people were questioned on the matter. It was found that 68.6 percent were opposing the increase of the retirement age. The employees working at foreign-funded companies showed the strongest opposition. The survey was conducted on people.com.cn, which is an online news portal operated by the People’s Daily in China.
Moreover, 73.5 percent of people supported flexible retirement, which aims to respect the plans of workers for early retirement. It was also found that 9.3 percent of people were strongly against such policy. The respondents opined that the top three measures must be implemented in the reform of the pension system in the country, which is adopting a flexible retirement mechanism, as opposed to an one-size-fits-all policy.
The plan also includes narrowing the gap of how much pension needs to be received by various groups of employees. The survey was conducted by people.com.cn, along with the Beijing-based consulting firms Net Ranking and OopsData. It was also observed that 96.5 percent of people surveyed are covered by old age pension programs in China.
Photo Credits: SCMP
