October 2024
04Oct

Fidelity International says fund sales surged on interest rate cuts, China market rally

Lower interest rates and a rally in China stocks have helped drive sales of investment fund products offered by Fidelity International, a senior executive said. “Following [the People’s Bank of China’s] stimulus package, China’s stock markets have been performing strongly, and we believe there is some room to grow,” said Charlotte Chan, the head of Fidelity’s Hong Kong office, in an interview. “Together with the Fed’s rate cutting cycle, this motivates investors to look at their allocations, especially those who...

October 4, 2024
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September 2024
24Sep

China’s retirement age reforms not enough to fix pension headache

China's move to raise retirement ages is a starting point to plug gaping pension deficits and bolster a shrinking workforce but more pain lies ahead as the economy slows, making further reforms urgent, say economists and demographers. Aging populations are a global phenomenon, but the issue is particularly stark in China due to the legacy of its one-child-policy, which was in place for three decades and has exacerbated its demographic challenges. China’s number of births dropped to 9 million last year and the...

September 24, 2024
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20Sep

When the Abundance Ends: Economic Transformation, Population Aging, and Shrinking Lifecycle Surplus in China

By Feng Wang, Ke Shen & Yong Cai China’s age of abundance, driven by rapid increases in labor income and a favorable population age profile, led to a sizable surplus at the society level. Using the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) approach, this study updates results published in this journal a decade ago. It traces changes in labor income and consumption patterns in China in the 2010s, and compares them with those in the decade prior. Our results report significant shifts...

September 20, 2024
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18Sep

Why China’s decision to extend the retirement age will not address fairness and sustainability issues

For many working Chinese, particularly those born in the 1980s and 1990s, Beijing’s decision to raise the retirement age by three years brings a sense of loss and betrayal. It means they have to work longer and pay more to get less from a major social contract. An internet meme that went viral reflected Chinese millennials’ frustration over the government’s flip-flop in birth and pension policies: “When I was born they said there were too many; when I gave birth...

September 18, 2024
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11Sep

China. Lawmakers review plan to raise retirement age in fast-greying China

China's top legislative body this week assessed an official plan to delay the country's retirement age, among the world's lowest, taking a key step towards changing decades-old labour laws and easing economic pressures stemming from a shrinking workforce. The ruling Communist Party said in July that China would gradually raise the country's retirement age. The retirement age is now 60 for men, about six years below that in most developed economies, while for women in white-collar work it is 55, and 50...

September 11, 2024
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04Sep

US. Pressure Mounts on Public Pension Funds to Divest Chinese Investments

As the world revisits decades of globalization and diminishes the interdependence and integration of the world’s economies, and as interests of China and its allies become less aligned with the interests of the U.S., Europe and their blocs, many institutional investors are caught between generating alpha and legislators who want their states’ funds to be completely divested from the world’s second-largest economy. Geopolitical worries have led legislators in several states to mandate that their state pension funds divest from Chinese...

September 4, 2024
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02Sep

China. More benefits could be doled out to incentivize couples to have more babies

Many countries in the world now face a shrinking, and simultaneously aging, population, which, if not promptly reversed or mitigated, could negatively impact the sustainable growth of their economies. A sufficient number of people is indispensable for running and reinforcing the operation of a functioning economy. Consequently, policymakers or relevant government authorities need to take note of the evolution of the ongoing changes of demographic patterns, and readjust and optimize their population policies so as to plan for a resilient...

September 2, 2024
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August 2024
29Aug

Gig economy is failing workers and needs urgent reform

In the recently released Chinese film Upstream, middle-aged lead Gao Zhilei, played by Xu Zheng, signs up as a food delivery driver to support his family after losing his white-collar job. Gao’s predicament is mirrored across the global working landscape where gig work has become a cost-effective way to fill temporary positions. The bulk of the work is in the food delivery, ride-hailing and home service sectors – a result of the emergence of app-driven, platform business models. But areas such as information...

August 29, 2024
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27Aug

China pilots housing pension system to enhance people’s living quality

China is piloting a housing pension system in 22 cities including Shanghai, which aims to better facilitate existing housing upgrade and enhance people's housing quality and living environment, the China Securities Journal has reported. In China, home buyers have been paying a "housing maintenance fund" since 1998, which covers maintenance on residential buildings. However, just like humans, housing can get old and sick. By the end of 2022, the proportion of homes in urban areas that were built over 30 years...

August 27, 2024
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20Aug

China plans ‘bigger, stronger’ social security fund to aid ageing society

China will beef up its 2.88 trillion yuan ($406 billion) social security fund, making it "bigger and stronger" to help support its rapidly ageing population as the number of new births and younger workforce to support its seniors shrinks. The National Social Security Fund will "effectively" respond to population ageing and "improve the policy mechanism for the development of the elderly care industry," the fund's party secretary Ding Xuedong said in comments made in Communist Party newspaper, the Study Times...

August 20, 2024
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