The Analysis On The Postponement Of The Legal Retirement Age Of Our Country

As one of the essential issues of basic endowment insurance, the adjustment of the legalretirement age has aroused continual attention from different sectors of the society. The currentregulations of the legal retirement age are dated from1951, which have not changed in essenceafter half a century. That is to say, except workers involved in special types of work and fewspecialists of higher intellectuals, the legal retirement age in China is60for male,50for femaleworkers and55for female cadres. In the meantime, the tremendous changes on the society,economy and demographic structure have been happened, mainly including the average lifeexpectance is increasing and the physical conditions are improving year by year, years ofschooling is extending and the initial time of the employment is deferring correspondingly, alsowomen’s desire of retiring at the same age with men in this new era has been becoming strongerand stronger. All these changes have provided possibilities to postpone the legal retirement age.It is necessary to postpone the legal retirement age in China. On one hand, the current system hasgradually revealed its inherent vulnerabilities and restricted its normal function exertion; on theother hand, the pace of population aging and the expansion of the pension income gap arethreatening the sustainable development of the endowment insurance system. Therefore,systematical study on when and how to postpone the legal retirement age become quitenecessary under the circumstances.The thesis took the legal retirement age as the research topic. First, I studied thebackgrounds and significance of this research, and did literature review of the previousresearches on the retirement age both at home and abroad. Second, I took Sweden, America andFrance as examples to analyze the experience and lesson of the reformation of retirement age indeveloped countries. Third, I made a general description and analysis of the history andproblems of our current retirement age system. Forth, I paid attention to the possibilities and thenegative effects of the policy. Fifth, I explored the suggestions and its relative supportingmeasurements of postponing the legal retirement age.