May 2025
26May

China steps up support for social participation of seniors amid population aging

From promoting volunteer service and expanding lifelong learning opportunities to developing senior-friendly tourism offerings, China is taking proactive steps to enhance social engagement among the elderly and support their pursuit of active, meaningful lives. These measures, laid out in a guideline released recently by 19 government departments, came as the country grapples with a rapidly aging population. Home to the world's largest elderly demographic, China had over 310 million people aged 60 and above by the end of 2024, accounting for...

May 26, 2025
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16May

The vision of younger-seniors-based elderly care in rural China: based on population aging predictions from 2020 to 2050

By Haojian Dou, Cheng Wang, Guishan Cheng, Xiaoyan Lei & Shuang Xu  Population aging is an irreversible and challenging global trend. Factors that worsen it in rural areas include the outflow of young adults, lack of medical resources, and uneven economic development. Based on projections of rural population aging trends in China from 2020 to 2050, this article explores the growth trends and spatial heterogeneity of elderly populations in rural areas. The results indicate that from 2020 to 2050, the...

May 16, 2025
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12May

China. Eld­erly patients to get improved clin­ical care

China plans to build more clin­ics spe­cial­iz­ing in geri­at­rics at major hos­pit­als and strengthen their cap­ab­il­it­ies as part of broader efforts to address the needs of a rap­idly aging soci­ety, accord­ing to a recent guideline released by the National Health Com­mis­sion. The updated guideline on the estab­lish­ment and man­age­ment of clin­ics for eld­erly patients, issued on Thursday, replaces an earlier ver­sion from 2019. It man­dates that hos­pit­als in the upper two tiers of the coun­try’s three-tier hos­pital sys­tem estab­lish such clin­ics...

May 12, 2025
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08May

No one wins in a U.S.-China trade war, Milken speakers say

The standoff between the U.S. and China over trade and tariffs presents enormous risks for the global economy, with implications for combatting climate change, nuclear weapons security, and for the development of international standards for artificial intelligence, speakers said May 6 at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2025 in Beverly Hills, Calif. “We are tearing apart an international trade regime that served our country and the world very well," Robert Rubin, who served as secretary of the Treasury in the...

May 8, 2025
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April 2025
25Apr

China’s Pension Fund Returns Outdo Many in US, Europe, Former Official Says

China’s pension returns on investment are better than those in many developed countries in Europe and the US and are in a globally leading position, the former chairman of the National Council of Social Security Fund of China, which manages the country’s largest pension fund, the National Social Security Fund, said yesterday China’s strong pension returns are mainly because prices in the country are relatively stable and the investment products are reasonable, Dai Xianglong, who is also a former governor...

April 25, 2025
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24Apr

Canadian plan sponsors watch China’s pension opt-outs for gig economy warning signs

More than 40 percent of flexible workers in China—including delivery drivers, livestreamers, and freelancers—are choosing not to participate in the national pension system, according to Morningstar Canada. Their shift away from the system has contributed to the state pension fund’s first cash-flow deficit since 2018, raising concerns about its sustainability. 29-year-old delivery driver Liu Xin works six days a week in Chengdu but cannot afford the $195 monthly contribution to the state plan. “That’s two weeks of groceries,” he said. “I can’t lock...

April 24, 2025
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16Apr

Population Aging, Digital Financial Inclusion, Development Strategies and Economic Resilience

By Dongsong Cai, Ling Long, WanHuan Cai & Xin Wang As China enters into a deeply aging society, China's demographic development has come to an unprecedented stage of great transition, which also has an impact on economic resilience. Based on the perspective of new structural economics, the relationship between population aging and economic resilience is explored. Meanwhile, empirical tests using provincial panel data find that, firstly, there is a positive effect of population aging on economic resilience, i.e., population aging...

April 16, 2025
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04Apr

Robots and Informal Employment in China

By Haiyan Lin This paper examines labor adjustments between the informal and formal sectors in response to the adoption of industrial robots in China. Using a longitudinal household data from 2010 to 2018, I find that robotization increases informal employment. Quantitatively, one more robot per thousand workers increases the share of informal employment by 1.16 percentage points. The reallocation is not driven by new entrants or re-entrants, but by workers initially employed in the formal sector. Displaced formal workers tend...

April 4, 2025
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March 2025
26Mar

Why China is betting on birth subsidies to solve its population crisis

When Tang Tang, a mother from Tianmen in central China, gave birth to her second child in December, it brought her family untold joy – and a thick wad of cash. Within months of leaving hospital, the local government paid Tang a 6,500-yuan (US$897) reward for having two children as part of a new birth subsidy scheme introduced last year. She will also receive an 800-yuan allowance every month until her new baby turns three. For a family in Tianmen, where...

March 26, 2025
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07Mar

How and Why the Gender Pension Gap in Urban China Decreased between 1988 and 2018

By Björn Gustafsson, Peng Zhan & Hanrui Jia In urban China, gender gaps in employment and earnings have steadily increased since the 1990s. Such gender gaps are important because pension rights and amounts are based on labor force participation and wages. However, as this study demonstrates, despite the rise in gender differences in the urban labor market, the average gender pension gap decreased between 1988 and 2018. In this paper, we describe the evolution of the fragmented pension system in...

March 7, 2025
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