Retirement age changes

[Steve Grondin]

I guess it depends on your idea of fairness. Should someone who starts work earlier have to work longer? Especially if the type of labor causes/correlates with shorter lifespans? To be fair in my consideration, the attachment to labor force would have some way of distinguishing casual labor (part-time while in college) from full time employment.

[campbell]

http://english.cri.cn/7146/2012/06/11/2702s705429.htm

The central authorities are now openly talking about extending the retirement age here in China to try to offset an expected shortfall in pension revenues.

....
Zheng says the current retirement policy was introduced in the 1970s when the average life expectancy was 70. The retirement age was set at 60 for male employees, 55 for women officials and 50 for female workers. But during the past 30 years, the life span of Chinese citizens has increased to 75 years.

....
The annual pension report for 2011 indicates that the revenue in the public and individual pension accounts in 14 provinces and municipalities fell short when it came to paying the pensions and the deficit was almost 70 billion yuan. It is unrealistic for the central coffers to always subsidize the pension funds in the long run. Thus, extending the retirement age seems to be the best solution for filling the void. The extension would add 4 billion yuan to China's pension fund annually and cut expenditures by 16 billion yuan.

....
Zheng says making the adjustment will take years, and a quick jump in the retirement age from 60 years old to 65 is unlikely to occur. He advises the government to lay out a plan as soon as possible as we have already started late.

[campbell]

....am I reading this correctly?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

Japan Bill to Raise Retirement Age Passes Lower House

TOKYO—The lower house of Japan's parliament on Thursday approved legislation that effectively raises the country's mandatory retirement age to 65 from 60 as the government and employers try to deal with swelling pension costs due to an aging society.

....mandatory retirement age has been 60?! Up til now?! In Japan?!

Under current law, employers can decide whether to keep employees after they retire at 60, often on reduced terms. The proposed legislation would give employees the right to decide whether to stay on until 65.

....
The bill was amended to include a clause that gives companies the right to force employees to retire at 60 if "mental or physical defects" hinder them from performing their duties.

Unions are suspicious of the clause, saying that the bill is a step in the right direction, but isn't enough to protect workers.

Motoaki Nakaoka, a spokesman for Zenrokyo, a council of trade unions, said that the clause's "ambiguous wording" would make it easy for companies to lay off senior workers who want to remain in their jobs.

"The companies overwhelmingly have power," he said.

Okay, not exactly mandatory, but 60 is not all that old. Especially for Japan (unless all those long-lived people have actually been dead for decades. Is some Soylent Green-like thing going on in Japan, and we hadn't noticed?

[Hojo]

Originally Posted by campbell

Is some Soylent Green-like thing going on in Japan, and we hadn't noticed?

Perhaps you have heard of two cities named Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[campbell]

Originally Posted by Hojo

Perhaps you have heard of two cities named Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

...and that's why their life expectancy increased so greatly afterwards?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20305339

Rapid increase in Japanese life expectancy after World War II.
Sugiura Y, Ju YS, Yasuoka J, Jimba M.
Source
Bureau of International Cooperation, International Medical Center of Japan, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Tokyo, Japan. yasugiura@gmail.com
Abstract

Japanese life expectancy increased by about 13.7 years during the first decade after World War II, despite the country's post-war poverty. Although it is known that medical progress explains part of this increase, roles of non-medical factors have not been systematically studied. This study hypothesizes that non-medical factors, in addition to medical factors, are associated with the rapid increase in life expectancy in Japan. We analyzed the time trends of potential explanatory factors and used regression analysis with historical data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' Historical Statistics of Japan during the period between 1946 and 1983. Time trends analysis revealed that the rapid increase in life expectancy preceded the dramatic growth of per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 10 years. In education, the nearly universal enrollment in elementary schools and increased advancement to upper secondary schools for both sexes were associated with better health. Regarding legislation, 32 health laws were passed in the first decade after the war and these laws were associated with improved health. Using regression analysis, we found that the enrollment rate in elementary schools, the number of health laws, and expansion of community-based activity staff were significantly associated with the increased life expectancy during the first decade after World War II. To conclude, in addition to medical factors, non-medical factors applied across the country, particularly education, community-based activities and legislation were associated with the rapid increase in Japanese life expectancy after World War II.

Hmmm, this is also interesting (obviously talking about life expectancy from birth)

http://www.economist.com/node/21528660

THE Japanese spend half as much on health care as do Americans, but still they live longer. Many give credit to their cheap and universal health insurance system, called kaihoken, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Its virtues are legion. Japanese people see doctors twice as often as Europeans and take more life-prolonging and life-enhancing drugs. Rather than being pushed roughly out of hospital beds, they stay three times as long as the rich-world average. Life expectancy has risen from 52 in 1945 to 83 today. The country boasts one of the lowest infant-mortality rates in the world. Yet Japanese health-care costs are a mere 8.5% of GDP.

Even so, the country's medical system is embattled. Although it needs a growing workforce to pay the bills, Japan is ageing and its population is shrinking. Since kaihoken was established in 1961, the proportion of people over 65 has quadrupled, to 23%; by 2050 it will be two-fifths of a population that will have fallen by 30m, to under 100m.

Their robotics work may help bridge the gap -- who knows.

[JMO]

Like a certain super-hero, maybe they were bit by a "radioactive spider."

[campbell]

In any case, I'm just going back to the surprise of the mandatory retirement age being set at 60, but I'm guessing that's a holdover from the days of lifetime employment.

[campbell]

More on the Japan retirement age issue
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...-in-japan.html

Mishima is one of 5.7 million Japanese older than 65 still in the workforce for money, health or to seek friends -- the highest proportion of employed seniors in the developed world. While European governments struggle to convince their voters to sign up for longer work lives, Japan faces the opposite issue: how to meet the wishes of an army of willing elderly workers.

Japan’s lower house passed legislation this month that would give private-sector employees the right to keep working for another five years, up to age 65. With the world’s longest life expectancy, largest public debt and below-replacement birthrate, curbing spiraling welfare costs by keeping people in jobs longer may help defuse a pension time bomb that threatens to overturn or bankrupt developed-world governments.
....
Japan is taking steps to avoid going the same way, as life expectancy -- predicted to exceed 90 years for women by 2050 -- threatens to prolong the time seniors are drawing pensions.
Even without the new legal entitlement, people already stay working in Japan longer than in other developed countries. Men exit the labor market on average at 70 and women at 67, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report last year.
....
Still, keeping senior workers can save on health costs. Nagano in central Japan has the highest proportion of working seniors of any prefecture and its elderly spend the least on health care, according to a 2007 white paper from the Japanese health ministry. In contrast, Fukuoka in the southwest has one of the lowest ratios of working seniors in the country and the highest health costs.

Dear lord. Perhaps there is lower employment for seniors there =because= they're in worse health?

[campbell]

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_ne...l?cid=33433278

Retirement at age 67 won’t be feasible over the long term if the Swiss pension system is to remain functional, a government-commissioned study has found.

The study by BAK Basel Economics evaluated the effect of the baby boom — the large increase in births between 1942 and 1973 — rising life expectancy, net migration and a low birth rate on the old age pension fund in the period between 2010 and 2060.

Sometime between 2015 and 2018, it found, more money will be needed for pensions than is collected through worker contributions and value-added tax (VAT).

A mix of approaches to addressing the problem was suggested, including rapid introduction of a temporary surcharge on salary contributions to finance the baby boomers' state pensions, and gradually increasing the retirement age over many years, beginning with an increase to 66 in 2019 and reaching 70 in 2050. The increase would be linked to a gradual increase in VAT.

....
In 2003, the then Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin stirred up controversy with his proposal to increase the retirement age to 67, but the change was never introduced. Currently, the retirement age is 64 for women and 65 for men.

A retirement age of 70 is considered too extreme both by conservative parties and trade associations. Conservative Democrats President Martin Landolt, quoted in Der Sonntag newspaper, welcomed a “step by step increase in the retirement age, initially in the direction of 67 years”, while Philipp Müller of the centre-right Radical Party saw a gradual increase “in the midterm” as unavoidable.

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party preferred to concentrate on increasing the retirement age for women to 65. And Thomas Daum of the Employers’ Association, pleaded for an increase to age 67, but “in homeopathic doses”.

homeopathic doses, huh

does that mean they'll get the retirement age up to 67 in a million years?

[campbell]

Israel
http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/glob...26863&fid=1725

Treasury seeks to raise retirement age to 70

The Finance Ministry plans a graduated retirement, with a final mandatory retirement age.

The Ministry of Finance has begun intensive staff work to raise the retirement age of men and women, top ministry officials have confirmed. When the process is completed, the retirement age will be 70, from the current age of 67 for men and 62 for women.
....
Top Ministry of Finance officials admitted that the plan's primary objective is to delay or raise the retirement age for men and women, but because of the ministry's past failures to do so, this time it is trying to implement a graduated higher retirement age. "The idea is to postpone the retirement age for everyone gradually. We will conduct a pilot study to offer people this program," said a top ministry official. "This is necessary. Life expectancy is rising, many 70-year olds are healthy and want to continue working. We are aware of petitions to the labor court against employers for compelling retirement."
The Ministry of Finance says that the plan does not include cancelling the retirement age. "We don’t want for there to be no retirement age. There must be a retirement age, otherwise, some workers are liable to reach 80 and be barely functioning, at which point their employer will have to send for tests at an occupational physician and require proof which will complicate matters. There must be an age at which a worker must retire," said the official.

Could someone older remind me why women's retirement ages have been set lower than for men if there is a difference. I've never seen it the other way.