CRI听力:House-For-Pension Issue in China

China has developed an aging society before it become wealthy enough. In 2030, the country will have about 450 million senior citizens. By that time, 2.4 young laborers will have to support one elderly person, while today nine young workers support one.

As part of the effort to address the issue, the government has tried the house-for-pension program in a few cities and it has become a recent hot topic in the public.

Ma Guangyuan, a social commentator, explains what the program is.

"The house-for-pension scheme is like a reverse mortgage loan. An insurance company or bank can evaluate the value of your house, and you can deed your house to them and receive an amount of money every month. You can still live in your house, but the ownership belongs to the company or the bank. It's like a supplementary model of pension schemes in many countries like Japan and the United States."

But private properties in China only be leased for a period of 70 years. Currently, the Laws relating to Ownership Rights in China stipulate that the leasehold ownership of homes can automatically be extended. But it doesn't indicate clearly how much the lease extensions will cost. Cai Yaozhong from the Beijing Attorney Association says that this will be critical in deciding whether the House-For-Pension scheme can be effectively implemented in the future.

"Whether we can push forward the pension scheme depends on whether people need to pay for additional fees and the amount of money they need to pay, or whether they won't be required to pay anything. If the fee is quite low, then by the time the property is 70 years old, the value of the house would be good enough, which would be a great help towards the owner's pension provision."

Besides that, there are also other obstacles in China for carrying out the house-for-pension scheme. As a supplementary pension method, not everyone who owns a house can be qualified to apply for such pension.

For example, the local policy in Shenzhen requires that applicants need to be in procession of at least two properties since the local banks also want to dodge potential risks in case the value of property shrinks sharply in the future. The problem is that those who have more than one home may not need the House-For-Pension scheme to support them in their old age. This is why few people are likely to be qualified to apply for the scheme.

Commentator Ma Guangyuan gives an example that a recent survey in Dalian has revealed other reasons why it's difficult to carry out the scheme.

"Many people in the city believe that it's against the traditional idea of depending on one's children when they get old. Second, elderly people worry about their children complaining about high housing prices. Their children would expect to inherite their parents' house after they died. The third reason is that elderly people worry that the financial institutions may take advantage of them and devaluate their property. Plus, they are concerned about whether they could rely on their property given the ups and downs of the real estate market."

But how can the pension problem be resolved? The reality that every Chinese faces now is that the government doesn't have enough money for its people in the account. So far, the void in China's national pension account has reached 1.3 trillion yuan. The government emphasizes that Chinese people need to mainly rely on family support. However, its one-child policy has resulted in limited number of young laborers in each family. Furthermore, the current commercial pension insurances haven't gained trust among many Chinese people.

Till now, it still remains a question in every Chinese citizen's mind that how I can have a decent life when I'm old. The answer is that it will still require great effort from both the government and society to ensure a time when retirees will feel more secure.

For CRI, I'm Liu Min.