Nearly 70 percent of Chinese people are opposed to a proposal to increase the retirement age, as the country looks to improve its pension system, according to a survey.
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Of the 1,062 people surveyed in 11 cities across China, 68.6 percent are against raising the retirement age, with employees at foreign-funded companies voicing the fiercest opposition(according to the survey on people.com.cn).
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In addition, 73.5 percent support flexible retirement, which would respect workers' plans for early or late retirement, while 9.3 percent strongly opposed such policy.
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The top three measures that the respondents' thought should be implemented in reforming the pension system were adopting a flexible retirement mechanism instead of a one-size-fits-all policy, setting up a multi-pronged system and narrowing the gap of how much pension different groups of employees should receive.
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The survey was jointly conducted through people.com.cn and two Beijing-based consulting firms Net Ranking and OopsData. Also, 96.5 percent of those surveyed are covered by China's old age pension programs.
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China has been considering raising the retirement age since 2008 to cope with its shrinking workforce and aging society.Â