| Against the background of China’s increasingly accelerating population aging process,the basic pension insurance system for urban enterprise employees is facing unprecedented pressure,while China is under the dual pressure of the transformation of the main social contradictions and the economic downturn,which has put forward new requirements for the reform and improvement of the basic pension insurance system for enterprise employees.Enterprise is an important carrier of the national economy and one of the most widespread forms of economic participation.Pension insurance has a fundamental role to play,and if enterprises fail to handle employees’ problems in pension insurance well,it will affect the development of social security,which in turn will hinder the development of the economy.However,against the background of longer life expectancy and increased economic downward pressure,the contradiction between the basic pension insurance system for urban workers and social and economic development is gradually magnified.On the one hand,China is still adopting the same retirement age of 60 years for men and50 years for women(55 years for female cadres).With the continuous development of social economy and the improvement of medical care,the life expectancy of China’s population will reach 78.2 years in 2021,compared with the initial period when the basic pension insurance system for urban workers was first established,the life expectancy of the population is extended,making it longer for employees to receive pensions after retirement.On the other hand,due to the impact of the global pandemic of the COVID-19,China’s economic growth has slowed down,enterprises are facing difficulties in their operations,and the employment of employees has become unstable,which not only affects the ability of enterprises to pay contributions,but also discourages individual employees from paying contributions,resulting in the discontinuation and disenrollment of enterprise employees’ pension insurance.At the same time,the employment form has been severe in recent years,enterprises have been hit hard,and the number of individuals and other informal employment has increased,which makes it difficult for these people to pay pension insurance continuously because of the instability of their occupation,which also makes the expansion of the coverage of the basic pension insurance system for urban enterprise employees face many difficulties.Although the government has carried out several reforms and improvements on the pension insurance policy for enterprise employees,and has achieved milestones and the basic ideas of reform have been formed,the actual implementation and execution are not yet satisfactory,and the basic pension insurance for enterprise employees is still a hot topic of academic debate,and there are still some directional issues that are more controversial and confusing and need to be studied in depth.Influenced by the aging population,China’s enterprise employees’ pension insurance still has problems such as low contribution years,low level of protection,low level of coordination,low value-added capacity,and high pressure of pension payment,etc.Therefore,it is important to analyze the current problems of China’s enterprise employees’ pension insurance and propose corresponding response strategies.This paper takes the basic pension insurance for urban employees,which is under the impact in the context of population aging as the research object,and aims to propose reform countermeasures suitable for the basic pension insurance system for urban employees in China.By combing the existing literature,comparing and analyzing the data published by the official website of the National Bureau of Statistics,and drawing on the reform measures of the pension insurance system of enterprise employees in other countries,we propose suggestions to improve the basic pension insurance system of urban employees in China.Firstly,the background and significance of the study as well as the relevant concepts and theoretical foundations are explained to lay the theoretical foundation for the later writing.Secondly,we will review the development history of China’s basic pension insurance system for urban workers,the current situation and the impact of population aging on China’s basic pension insurance system for urban workers,and put forward the problems of China’s current basic pension insurance system for urban workers.1997 The Decision on Establishing a Unified Basic Pension Insurance System for Enterprise Workers was issued,which formally defined the framework of China’s pension insurance system for urban enterprise workers.It realized the co-existence of social coordination and individual accounts,and the co-existence of pay-as-you-go system and fund accumulation system.This system has been in use until now,and after more than20 years of reform and improvement,it has achieved some milestones,but there are still many unresolved problems.On the one hand,the development in the past twenty years has made some achievements,the number of participants in the basic pension insurance system for urban employees in China has been increasing year by year,and the scale of the fund has been expanding,but there are differences in different regions.On the other hand,there are still many problems in this system,such as the legislation is not perfect,the level of coordination is low,there is a shortage of pensions and the ability to preserve and increase the value of pensions is low,the number of years of contribution is low and there is the phenomenon of early retirement.Thirdly we will compare the reform measures taken by the pension insurance systems of enterprise employees in the United Kingdom,the United States and Japan when these three countries are facing the dilemma of population aging,and extract the practices that are suitable for China’s national conditions as the basis for making suggestions to improve the pension insurance system of urban enterprise employees in China.Although there are differences between these countries and China in terms of social background,culture and economy,their pension insurance systems are relatively well developed and have certain significance for improving China’s system,but we should pay attention to combining them with the actual situation in our country and not to copy them completely.Finally,combining with foreign experiences,we propose suggestions for improving the basic pension insurance for urban workers in China.This paper argues that measures such as establishing a national unified basic pension insurance system for urban workers,adopting various means to solve the cost of conversion,improving China’s retirement system,developing a multi-pillar pension insurance system and broadening pension investment channels can cope with the impact on the pension insurance system brought by the aging population. |
