A Review of Studies on the Impact of Delayed Retirement Policies on
China's Socio-Economy
Yaxi Liu
Public Administration Department, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430074, China
Keywords: Delayed Retirement, Population Aging, Labor Market.
Abstract: Amidst China's rapidly aging population, the policy of postponing retirement has emerged as a crucial tool
for managing the country's aging population, relieving pressure on pensions, and reorganizing the labor
market. Its effects on the country's socioeconomic landscape have garnered significant attention. Through a
methodical review of relevant research, this article explores the effects of China's delayed retirement policy
on the country's economy and society from a variety of angles, including economic development, the labor
market, and the social security system. Although the delayed retirement policy helps to reduce the burden of
aging and boost economic growth, its complexity and controversy force policymakers to strike a compromise
between equality and efficiency. To guarantee successful implementation, future studies should focus more
on cross-sectoral data integration, localized policy adaption, and evaluation of long-term social consequences.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Realities of Population Aging
As society has evolved, nations all over the world are
gradually dealing with the issue of aging populations,
which is viewed as a danger to social and economic
advancement. Since the enactment of the German
Old-Age and Disability Insurance Act in 1889, most
countries and regions in the world have begun to
implement a pension insurance system, but in the
1980s, against a backdrop of economic stagnation and
public financial constraints, countries began to reform
their pension insurance systems in accordance with
the principle of "cutting back on costs". Population
ageing is one of the major issues facing the world
today. It has given rise to a wide-ranging discussion
on how to ensure the quality of life of older persons
in their retirement years, a theme that has led to a
constant reorientation of pension policies around the
world, with the reorientation of retirement policies
becoming an important practice, guided by the
strategy of "active ageing" based on the fundamental
concepts of health, participation and security.
In China, the scale and speed of population aging
are unprecedented. According to relevant data, in
2020, China's elderly population aged 65 years and
above has exceeded 190 million, accounting for
13.5% of the total population, by the end of 2023,
China's elderly population aged 60 years and above
amounted to 297 million, the aging level of 21.2%,
marking the country has entered the medium aging
society, and by the middle of the century, the elderly
population will even reach more than 500 million, the
aging level of over 40%, entering the super-aging
society (Wu, 2015). By the middle of this century, the
elderly population will reach more than 500 million,
and the aging level will exceed 40%, entering a super-
aging society. These "five super" characteristics, i.e.,
super-sized elderly population, super-fast aging
process, super-high level of aging, super-stable aging
society, and super-different internal structure of
aging, constitute the unique landscape of China's
population aging. Some scholars have pointed out
that the scale and speed of population ageing in China
is unique in the global context, far exceeding the
economic level of developed countries at the time of
ageing, and presenting the characteristic of "ageing
before getting rich".
1.2 The Proposal and Practice of the
Policy
As a key part of the response to the challenges of an
ageing society, changes and developments in
retirement policy have attracted much attention. An
explicit plan to address the population's aging was
314
Liu, Y.
A Review of Studies on the Impact of Delayed Retirement Policies on China’s Socio-Economy.
DOI: 10.5220/0014373800004859
Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Politics, Law, and Social Science (ICPLSS 2025), pages 314-319
ISBN: 978-989-758-785-6
Proceedings Copyright © 2026 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda.

presented in the "Outline of the Twelfth Five-Year
Plan for Social Security" that followed the Ministry
of Human Resources and Social Security's
(MOHRSS) 2008 announcement that it was planning
and waiting for the appropriate moment to raise the
retirement age (Wang and Yu, 2016). In 2013, the
Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central
Committee proposed to "study and formulate a policy
of gradually delaying the retirement age", and the
implementation process of the delayed retirement
policy has been accelerating, and in 2024, the Third
Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee
put forward the principle of "in accordance with the
principle of voluntariness and flexibility, and to
promote the reform of gradual delay of the mandatory
retirement age in a steady and orderly manner". Since
January 1, 2025, delayed retirement has been
implemented nationwide, and the Ministry of Human
Resources and Social Security and other three
departments have issued the Interim Measures for the
Implementation of Flexible Retirement System,
which clearly stipulates the procedures for flexible
retirement and the receipt of basic pension, etc., so
that employees can voluntarily choose to retire early
or delay their retirement within a certain range. Some
studies have concluded that the gradual postponement
of the retirement age has become an important task
during the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan period, with
wide-ranging and far-reaching implications, and that
it will have a direct impact on the labor market and
the social security system.
In China's socio-economic growth, delayed
retirement policy has emerged as a crucial problem
that cannot be disregarded as a means of addressing
the aging population. The complexity of this issue is
not only reflected in its direct impact on the labor
market and pension system, but also in its far-
reaching reshaping effect on China's socio-economic
structure. This paper will review the literature
systematically, adopt the research perspectives of
management science and sociology, and start from
the dimensions of labor market, social security
system, and economic growth to comprehensively
sort out the socio-economic effects of the delayed
retirement policy, so as to provide a scientific and
reasonable decision-making basis for the policy
makers, and have important theoretical and practical
significance in promoting the effective
implementation and improvement of the retirement
policy.
2 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE
DELAYED RETIREMENT
POLICY
2.1 The Need for a Delayed Retirement
Policy
The implementation of the delayed retirement policy
is not only an important measure to cope with the
aging of the population, but also a systematic change
in the process of China's social and economic
transformation. Regarding the formation of the
Chinese delayed retirement policy, academic research
has gone through a transformation from "passive
adaptation" to "active optimization". A thorough
analysis of both local and foreign research shows that
the impact of the delayed retirement policy exhibits a
clear stage-by-stage characteristic in terms of
socioeconomic repercussions (Pei et al., 2024). Initial
studies mainly focused on the pressure of aging on
pension funds, and viewed delayed retirement as a
way for the government to alleviate the payment gap
by extending working life (Ding and Li, 2024).
However, this perspective lies in viewing delayed
retirement as a contingency tool and ignores its
potential socio-economic benefits. In recent years, as
the concept of active aging has been introduced into
policy discussions, delaying retirement has been seen
by scholars as a proactive approach to improve the
effectiveness of human capital utilization and foster
economic growth (He et al., 2022).
In terms of practical needs, if I use the logic of
"background-conflict-resolution" to explore the
formation process of the delayed retirement policy, we
can see that: on the one hand, China is facing the dual
dilemmas of decreasing labor supply and intensifying
pressure on pensions, which constitutes the practical
background of the policy; on the other hand, the
public's acceptance of the delayed retirement is
relatively low, especially older workers may face
problems such as age discrimination in the workplace,
which forms the core conflict in the implementation of
the policy (Yang, 2020). In order to resolve this
conflict, policy makers have adopted a gradual
adjustment approach to minimize the social impact
and improve public adaptability (Xi et al., 2022).
Thus, the policy of postponing retirement is an
unavoidable outcome of the public-government
relationship.
From the theoretical aspect, the adoption of the
delayed retirement policy has strong theoretical
support. On the economic side, important
considerations in the execution of retirement policy
A Review of Studies on the Impact of Delayed Retirement Policies on China’s Socio-Economy
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include the labor market's supply and demand balance,
the pension replacement rate, and the possibility of
economic expansion, while on the sociological side,
the impact of aging on family structure,
intergenerational relations and the social welfare
system has become a key topic for retirement policy
(Wu, 2015). In addition, studies in psychology have
demonstrated that retiring has a significant impact on
a person's sense of purpose in life as well as their
physical and mental health. The combination of
theories from multiple fields demonstrates the need
for a delayed retirement policy.
2.2 Controversies Arising from the
Delayed Retirement Policy
Although the proposed delayed retirement policy has
a solid theoretical foundation and practical needs, its
complexity and controversy should not be
overlooked. From the perspective of policy
formulation, the design of the policy needs to find a
balance between efficiency and fairness. On the one
hand, extending the retirement age can increase labor
supply and ease the pressure on pensions; on the other
hand, it may also squeeze the employment
opportunities of the younger generation and
aggravate the inequality of certain groups (Shang,
2021). Therefore, how to realize the balance of
interests in the process of policy implementation has
become the focus of both academics and
practitioners. Meanwhile, the successful cases of
delayed retirement policy implementation have
provided experience and inspiration for other
countries. For example, some developed countries
have successfully improved the employability and
quality of life of older workers through flexible
retirement mechanisms and skills training programs
(Solovieva et al., 2024) .
In conclusion, because of the delayed retirement
policy's intricate mechanism, its effects on China's
economy and society are likewise multifaceted. This
requires scholars to focus not only on the direct
effects of the policy, but also to explore its potential
secondary effects.
3 IMPACTS OF DELAYED
RETIREMENT POLICIES ON
THE ECONOMY
3.1 Impact on China's Labor Market
The primary manner in which that the delayed
retirement policy affects the labor market is by
altering the dynamic interplay between labor supply
and demand. From a theoretical perspective, delayed
retirement is regarded as a structural adjustment tool
to cope with population aging and labor shortages,
and the actual effects of this policy will show diverse
results depending on the socio-economic background,
industry distribution and individual differences.
At the macro level, by extending people' working
lives and reducing the strain caused by demographic
shifts, postponed retirement expands the labor
market's overall supply. However, at the same time,
this increase is not evenly distributed, but
concentrated in specific fields and occupational
groups (Zhang, 2019). At the micro level, an
incentive-constraint system, which affects people in
two distinct forms, characterizes the influence of
postponed retirement on their job decisions. On the
one hand, by raising the pension threshold or
providing additional incentives, the policy makes
some people who originally planned to retire early
stay in the workplace. This optimizes the efficiency
of human capital utilization to a certain extent and
promotes the transfer of experience and the diffusion
of technology. According to Yang Li Weijun et al, the
new labor force added under the delayed retirement
program generally has a higher level of education,
and this trend is especially significant among the
female group (Yang, 2019). With the progress of
society and the implementation of higher education,
delayed retirement may become an important way to
release high-quality labor. However, the
intergenerational competition arising from this policy
cannot be ignored, especially in the context of high
youth unemployment. Studies have shown that when
older workers occupy more jobs, young people's
access to the labor market may be squeezed, resulting
in a "crowding out effect" (Yao, 2024). Guo et al.
propose a mechanism of "intergenerational
dependency", suggesting that delayed retirement may
crowd out the time investment of the older generation
in the younger generation, thus affecting the
accumulation of human capital within the family
(Guo et al., 2021). This intergenerational interaction
reveals the indirect effects of delayed retirement
policies: while longer working lives may directly
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increase labor supply, they also undermine the space
for the development of the younger generation.
A tangible example of the long-term effects on the
labor market is the way that postponed retirement
interacts with the social safety system. Under the
framework of positive aging, delayed retirement is
not only a tool to increase the labor participation rate,
but also one of the important paths to achieve
inclusive social development. For instance, China's
social security system is constantly improving, and as
a result, the elderly's rights to reemployment are
progressively safeguarded by law. This creates a solid
institutional guarantee for the execution of the
prolonged retirement policy (Xu and Lv, 2021).
The effects of the postponed retirement strategy
include, in addition to the economic equilibrium of
supply and demand, sociological and psychological
research the theories on health and well-being. The
impact of this on the labor market is reflected in the
labor force subject impact. For example, it has been
suggested that appropriately reducing leisure time in
retirement and maintaining a moderate level of work
engagement can help to delay the decline of an
individual's cognitive functioning and improve
mental health (Fontana et al., 2024). However, the
prerequisite for this positive effect is that the content
of the work matches the individual's ability,
otherwise, the excessive labor burden may lead to
physical injury or increased psychological stress. In
addition, the emergence of contemporary technology
like the Internet has opened up new opportunities for
elder workers. According to a large-scale cohort
study of middle-aged and elderly people in China,
daily use of the Internet significantly improves their
level of intrinsic abilities, including cognitive
flexibility and social interaction, and greater access to
the Internet for older workers as a result of delayed
retirement can help to improve the quality of the
individual, and thus the overall level of the labor
force.
3.2 Impact on the Social Security
System
The system is the main topic of social security. In the
current Chinese society, the pension fund system is
particularly vulnerable within the framework of
increasing population aging, while delayed retirement
is seen as one of the key strategies to alleviate this
crisis. Through this policy, it not only directly reduces
the extension of the pension payment period, but also
increases the labor supply and contribution base, thus
indirectly improving the pension fund's viability.
The sustainability of pension insurance benefits
depends primarily on the dynamic relationship
between the contribution base, the number of
contributors and the number of recipients. The
proportion of the working-age population is
decreasing and the proportion of the elderly is
increasing due to China's rapid demographic change.
This causes the pressure on pension payments to rise
annually, while the policy of postponing retirement
makes structural adjustments to the pension insurance
fund's long-term balance of income and expenditure.
According to the research results of the actuarial
model, the gradual delayed retirement age policy of
"synchronization between men and women" can
reduce the cumulative financial burden of pension
insurance by 34.36%, while the program of "women
first and men later" can achieve a reduction of 6.68%
(Chen et al., 2024). This implies that, depending on
how it is implemented, the delayed retirement policy
can successfully lessen the strain on pension
payments, and that gender-differentiated policy
design may further optimize the effect of the policy.
However, some scholars have also pointed out that
such macro gains are not unconditionally valid, but
depend on the increase of labor participation rate and
the adaptive adjustment of economic structure. For
example, in the context of accelerated aging, it is
difficult to fully solve the pension gap problem by
solely relying on delayed retirement, and it is
necessary to combine it with other supporting reform
measures, such as the national coordination of
pension insurance and the adjustment of maternity
policy (Zeng and Lu, 2023). Meanwhile, the
effects of postponing retirement on a person's pension
income are complicated. On the one hand, delaying
retirement has the potential to boost individual
account accumulation, which would raise post-
retirement pension levels.; on the other hand, the
current method of calculating pensions in the current
pension insurance system may result in some groups,
such as low-income laborers, suffering economic
losses due to delayed retirement.
The distribution of medical resources as well as the
allocation of finances both show how postponed
retirement affects the social security system.
Nowadays, how to realize the "integration of health
care" is an important topic in society, which also
reflects the contradiction between the distribution of
health care resources and the adaptability of policies
in the context of population aging faced by Chinese
society. In the policy assessment, delayed retirement
brings longer labor force participation, which will
change the structure and total distribution of
healthcare demand. Studies have shown that with the
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317

delayed retirement age, the continued presence of the
elderly population in the labor market may increase
the demand for short-term healthcare services,
especially in the management of chronic diseases, the
prevention and treatment of occupational diseases,
and routine health monitoring. This change in
demand stems not only from the natural decline of
workers' bodily functions with age, but is also
influenced by a combination of factors such as labor
intensity and work environment. Delayed retirement
places a burden on the allocation of medical
resources.
Whether it is pension insurance or medical
insurance, it embodies the problem of resource
distribution. This points to the conflict between the
differences in the distribution of rights and benefits
among different groups arising from delayed
retirement. In China, for example, old-age insurance
benefits are paid and received differently in different
regions due to development disparities between urban
and rural communities. The level of pension
insurance coverage in rural areas is low, and many
residents rely on family pensions rather than the
public pension system. Against this background,
delays in retirement have a more direct effect on
urban workers, while the practical significance for
rural residents is relatively limited. In addition,
female workers tend to leave the labor market earlier
due to more family responsibilities, and if the delayed
retirement policy fails to make appropriate
adjustments to address gender differences, it may
exacerbate existing inequalities (Jang et al., 2024). At
the same time, while the combination of a national
pension system and gradual retirement delays can
reduce the fiscal burden, this financial relief often
comes at the expense of employment opportunities
for younger workers. In a slowing economy or a
sluggish job market, extending the working life may
further squeeze the employment opportunities of the
younger generation, creating new social conflicts (He
et al., 2022).
4 CONCLUSION
As a crucial strategy to address the aging of the
population and the strain on the labor supply, the
delayed retirement policy has an influence that goes
beyond the economy and fundamentally alters the
way Chinese society functions. Theoretically, the
implementation of this policy marks a shift from a
single labor economics perspective to a multi-
dimensional socio-economic analysis framework.
Initial studies tended to focus on the direct impact on
the labor market, but as the studies went deeper,
scholars gradually recognized the far-reaching impact
of this policy on family structure, intergenerational
relations, and consumption patterns.
Throughout the existing research, although a
wealth of results has been accumulated, there are still
some directions that need to be broken through. The
first is the problem of reconstructing the theoretical
system, most of the current research stays at the level
of applying the established theories and lacks original
theoretical innovations for China's special national
conditions. Second is the limitation of research
methodology, over-reliance on quantitative analysis
may lead to the neglect of qualitative factors. Lastly,
there is a lack of perfection in the policy evaluation
system, with existing evaluation indicators often
focusing too much on short-term economic benefits
and neglecting the consideration of long-term social
effects.
In light of the aforementioned factors, the author
believes that future research should focus on three
aspects: first, deepening the research on the
psychosocial effects of the delayed retirement policy,
and exploring how to enhance the acceptability of the
policy through institutional design; second,
strengthening cross-sectoral data sharing, and
constructing a more accurate platform for policy
simulation; and third, focusing on the localization of
the international experience, and avoiding the simple
copying of foreign models. We can only guarantee
that the policy of delayed retirement will be able to
fulfill its anticipated function and offer robust
assistance for China's sustained socio-economic
growth in this manner.
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