China's elderly population retired, but still working

About a third of Chinese people aged 60 to 69 are still working, according to a report from Chinese financial media outlet Yicai.

Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics show that China's elderly population (those aged 60 and above) reached 280 million in 2022, among which people aged 60 to 69 were estimated to be at least 150 million. Within this demographic, about one-third are still working, according to the report.

The report said that as China's "baby boomer" generation - those born in the 1960s - has started quitting the workforce, the country is seeing a surge in the number of retirees.

Statistics of China Census Yearbook 2020 showed that 6.8 percent of the employed population in China, or about 51 million people, were aged 60 to 69.

The growing number of grey-haired workers is evidenced by data from job-seeker websites.

According to BOSS Zhipin, a mobile platform for job seeking, the number of active job hunters aged over 55 on the platform increased by 27 percent year-on-year in 2022, and job positions open for application of retirees also increased by 33 percent compared to the previous year.

According to the 2020 census yearbook, most of the working seniors - nearly two thirds - were engaged in farming.

As the rural elderly have no fixed income, they have to work after retirement age to make ends meet, said Dong Yuzheng, director of the Guangdong Academy of Population Development. For them, there is no retirement to speak of, he said.

According to data available, the monthly pension for China's rural population is about 180 yuan ($26), compared with about 3,500 yuan for their urban counterparts.

In addition to farming, 7.29 percent of the employed elderly worked in the manufacturing industry, 8.31 percent in construction and 6.61 percent in wholesale and retail.

Niu Fengrui, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Yicai that the level of farmer pensions should be appropriately raised in line with the growth of the national economy and public finances to improve the livelihoods of elderly farmers.