A Growing Pain for the Government
In recent discussions, the Indian government has proposed to raise retirement age in relation to its employees. Financial implications of pension for retired workers are assuming new dimensions and proving detrimental for government where pension reforms have become issue of discussion. This scenario is quite familiar to recent trends in China: the government has already begun to increase retirement age for the Workers.
China’s New Retirement Policy
China has declared that it will guarantee employees can retire later than before after the New Year starts from the first of January 2025. The new policy reduces the retirement age for employees from 60 years to 63 years for men and from 55 to 58 years for women employed in the administrative section and for those women, who work at least in the manual sector, from 50 to 55 years.
This action is in line with a new measure to arrest a decline of population in the country and the rise in the number of elderly people. China has recently recognized high rates of ageing among its population, and the following policy change confronts the central government with considerable challenges to providing social security for its citizens.
Speculation in India
As the Chinese government proposed the change, similar discussions are being made in India over the consideration of increasing retirement age. With the government assessing its fiscal responsibilities and a dwindling population leading to an aging workforce many are wondering what such a shift will bring.
A possible solution, which could also have some positive effects, is the raising of age for retirement, which would help the authorities to free up more resources besides, experienced workers would be able to continue work for several more years.
