[Focus on "Fourteenth Five-Year" Expert Written Talks] The policy of delaying retirement should be actively and steadily promoted

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  ●The implementation principle of delayed retirement determined in the "14th Five-Year Plan" outlines the unity of policy and flexibility, and sets the tone for the introduction of the delayed retirement policy.

Only by taking into account the needs of economic and social development and the actual wishes of workers at the same time, can the retirement policy be fully understood by all workers and form a consensus of the whole society.

This is of great significance to the introduction, promotion and implementation of future policies.

  The "14th Five-Year Plan" and the 2035 long-term goal outline (hereinafter referred to as the "Outline") propose that, taking into account factors such as the increase in average life expectancy, the accelerated trend of population aging, the increase in the number of years of education, and the changes in the labor structure, it will be adjusted in small steps. The principles of flexible implementation, classified promotion, and overall planning will gradually delay the statutory retirement age and promote the full use of human resources.

The determination of the principle of delayed retirement implementation revealed that the delayed retirement policy has officially entered the stage of implementation of the plan.

The establishment of the principle itself reflects the unity of policy and flexibility, and sets the tone for delaying the introduction of retirement policies.

  my country implements delayed retirement

  The necessity and urgency of policy

  The outline actually fully expresses the necessity and urgency of implementing the delayed retirement policy.

  The increase in the average life expectancy in our country has extended the working period and made it necessary to delay retirement.

Our country’s current retirement policies for men at 60, women cadres at 55, and women workers at 50 were formulated in the 1950s when New China was founded.

After more than 70 years of development, my country's average life expectancy has been greatly extended, from about 40 years old in the early days of the founding of New China to 77.3 years in 2019, and the average life expectancy of urban residents has exceeded 80 years.

The retirement policy that has not been adjusted in the past 70 years has caused a waste of human resources to a certain extent.

At the same time, with the continuous improvement of living standards, the physical fitness of the population has also been greatly improved, and more and more hours are available for healthy work.

  Delaying retirement is of great benefit to the continuation of the "demographic dividend".

For the labor market, delaying retirement means adding tens of millions of labor, and the problems of "difficulties in recruitment and labor shortage" that have existed in the past 20 years will be alleviated to a certain extent.

Since 2012, my country's new urban labor force has entered a stage of net reduction.

If retirement is delayed, then my country's labor resources will be more fully utilized, and the relative shortage of labor will also be eased to a certain extent.

In addition, due to the increase in the number of years of education of the population, the actual working time of workers within the original working time period has been shortened, and the effective working time of the whole society can also be increased by delaying retirement.

At present, the average number of years of education for the newly added labor force in my country has reached 13.7 years.

By delaying retirement, the effective working hours of more and more high-quality labors have been extended, which is of positive significance to the future economic and social development.

  Delaying retirement is conducive to further tapping the rich human resources of the elderly, especially making full use of the experienced and skilled elderly professionals.

As we all know, the shortage of skilled personnel is currently one of the bottlenecks restricting my country’s economic and social development of higher quality. According to data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, as of now, there are more than 200 million skilled workers in my country, of which more than 50 million are highly skilled. Skilled laborers in my country account for only 26% of the total employed population, highly skilled personnel account for only 28% of the total number of skilled personnel, and the recruitment rate of technically skilled personnel exceeds 2.

In fact, there are a large number of experienced, knowledgeable and skilled talents in my country's huge human resources team for the elderly, which can effectively make up for the structural shortage of labor in the human resources market.

Not only that, the elderly skilled talents can also pass on their rich experience and skills to the younger generation of laborers through the "teaching and apprenticeship" approach.

Although the elderly labor force is not as strong as the young people, they have a wealth of knowledge and the ability to solve problems is generally higher than that of the young people.

Especially for high-educated and high-skilled senior citizens, due to the long-term accumulation of knowledge and experience, their labor productivity will not decrease with the decline of human muscle energy in a short period of time. Therefore, this complementary advantage can not only improve Work efficiency, and can reduce the differences between generations, improve the social status of the elderly, increase their happiness and satisfaction, and realize their self-worth.

In addition, the proliferation of new technologies and new forms of business has also created a lot of opportunities for elderly laborers to find employment and entrepreneurship. In particular, flexible employment methods have lowered the threshold for employment and entrepreneurship, and will enable more elderly human resources to enter "mass entrepreneurship and innovation." Coming in the wave.

Delayed retirement policy

  Limited employment impact

  Regarding such a major system reform that affects the entire society, especially the issue involving the vital interests of all workers, the introduction of policies needs to be cautious.

In fact, in 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to study and formulate a gradual delaying retirement age policy, and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security has repeatedly stated that it will promote the introduction and implementation of the delayed retirement policy in accordance with the principle of prudence.

The formulation of the principle of delaying the implementation of retirement means that the policy may be introduced during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.

As far as the groups affected by the delayed retirement policy are concerned, as long as the people who have not retired before the introduction of the policy will be included.

Although the target age for postponing retirement has not yet been announced, it is certain that the determination of the age line will take into account the actual health of the workers and refer to internationally popular practices.

  In fact, most countries in the world, especially developed countries, have implemented delayed retirement policies, and the statutory retirement age is obviously longer than that in my country.

For example, the statutory retirement age in the United States is 66 years old, and the statutory retirement age in Germany is 65.9 years old. These two countries plan to postpone it to 69 years old.

In Japan, which is highly aging, the government requires employers to postpone the retirement age of hopeful workers to 70.

In contrast, my country is one of the countries with an earlier retirement age in the world, and the average retirement age of all workers is only about 54 years old.

  Some people worry that delaying retirement will increase the employment pressure of young workers.

It should be said that such an impact is possible, but the expected impact is very limited.

On the one hand, the delayed retirement policy itself has been implemented for a long time and has little impact on the labor market. On the other hand, the occupational difference between young labor and elderly labor is large, and there is basically no problem of "grabbing jobs" with each other.

Generally speaking, the elderly labor force is more concentrated in traditional industries, while the young people are more concentrated in the new economy and new business forms.

Judging from the specific practice abroad, in most countries that implement delayed retirement policies, most of the elderly and young labor can complement each other.

For example, in Japan, the employment of the elderly is mainly based in traditional industries. In addition, in some life-related service industries, senior employees also occupy an important position and become an indispensable labor force in maintaining the normal operation of the industry.

  There are also people who worry about the delay in retirement, the time to pay for pension insurance is long, and the time to receive it is short. In fact, this worry is too much.

Because the social security payment period is longer, it will increase the basic pension level of the insured person after retirement. The long-term payment will pay more, and the overpayment will pay more. In addition, the extension of the working period will increase the salary income, which has little effect on the individual, not to mention The pension policy should also be adjusted accordingly, with flexibility.

The implementation principle of delayed retirement reflects

  Unity of policy and flexibility

  Judging from the implementation principles of delayed retirement announced this time, my country’s upcoming delayed retirement policy is not a “one size fits all” forced advancement, but a flexible policy that reflects the individual wishes of workers.

  The principle of "small step adjustment" refers to the fact that after the implementation of the policy, the retirement age line will slowly advance in a relatively long period of time.

For example, people of different age groups have different retirement ages.

By analogy, the reform will be completed after a transition period of several years.

In the early stage of the reform, those who are approaching retirement may be delayed by a few months.

For young people, the extended retirement age will be larger, but the transition period and adaptation period will be longer in the future.

  The principle of “flexible implementation” means that the delayed retirement reform will be implemented on the basis of a unified implementation, combined with my country’s actual national conditions, cultural traditions, and historical evolution, and increase flexibility factors, allowing individuals to choose specific early retirement based on their own circumstances and conditions. Time fully reflects the flexibility and tolerance of reform.

In other words, for those who voluntarily retire early, there is an extra right to choose freely.

From an objective point of view, there are big differences in terms of the employment stability and work intensity of different occupational groups, different positions, or individual physical conditions, family needs and value pursuits, and the resulting demands are different. The policy should reflect a certain degree of flexibility.

  The principle of "advance by classification" means that different groups and different genders will continue to maintain differences in retirement ages, and they must be smoothly integrated with the current retirement policies.

As for the existing policy differences in different occupations, regions, and positions, policy continuity will be maintained after the reform to ensure an orderly connection and smooth transition before and after policy adjustments.

Regarding the setting of the post-retirement age line, there are two possibilities. One possibility is to use the opportunity of reform to merge the retirement age of all employees and implement a unified standard.

That is to say, after the implementation of the delayed retirement policy, different groups set the same retirement age line, for example, they all retire at the age of 65; another possibility is to implement classified and simultaneous progress, that is, set different retirement age lines according to different groups. For example, there is still a certain retirement age difference between men and women.

At present, in accordance with the principle of classified promotion, the latter option is more likely to be adopted.

  The principle of "overall planning and all-round consideration" means that supporting policies and safeguard measures need to be promoted in concert.

The postponement of retirement reform is a systematic project, and there are many supporting and guarantee policy measures related to it, and it needs to be planned and promoted in coordination.

On the one hand, some past retirement age-related policies must be adjusted accordingly with the delay in retirement; on the other hand, the delayed retirement reform will also bring some new opportunities, problems and challenges, and corresponding supporting measures are needed to follow up in time. In.

For example, related studies have found that delaying retirement may affect young people's willingness to bear children.

Many young couples' decisions about when to have a second child or not will be affected by when their parents retire.

If the supportive policies for childbearing and nurturing can be improved as soon as possible, the human resources of the elderly can be freed up, so as to realize the simultaneous improvement of the willingness of young people to bear children and the willingness of the elderly to obtain employment.

  The implementation principle of delayed retirement reflects the unity of policy and flexibility.

The policy is embodied in that the introduction of the delayed retirement policy is necessary to take into account the long-term economic and social development, and the flexibility is embodied in the policy that takes into account the personal wishes of the workers and takes care of the actual needs of the workers to the greatest extent.

Only by taking into account the needs of economic and social development and the actual wishes of workers at the same time, can the retirement policy be fully understood by all workers and form a consensus of the whole society.

This is of great significance to the introduction, promotion and implementation of future policies.

  (The author is a professor at the National Institute of Opening to the Outside World University of International Business and Economics)

  Li Changan