经济学人下载:中国人口老化

Meanwhile, local governments across the country will have to cope with a fast-rising population of retired people whose pensions, if any, will have to be paid for by contributions from a shrinking working population. The central government has been trying to help, introducing a rural pension scheme that is due to cover the whole of the countryside by 2020. In rural areas the dependency ratio will rise far more steeply than in cities as young people move out and the elderly stay behind. But again money is a problem. As with schools and medical services, the central government makes the plans but leaves it to local governments to put up the lion’s share of funding.

与此同时，全国各地的地方政府将不得不应付快速增加的退休人员，当然是那些老龄化问题出现的地方，这些退休人员的养老金将不得不以不断萎缩的劳动人口的贡献来支付。中央政府一直在尝试着帮助地方政府，在中央政府的支持下，农村养老计划预计在2020年会覆盖到全国的农村地区。由于农村地区的年轻人移居城镇，把老年人滞留在农村，农村地区的抚养系数将会比城市的抚养系数上升幅度更大。但是经费又成为了一个难题。就拿教育和医疗服务来说，中央政府制定了计划，但是它又把计划分配给了地方政府，让它们承担起了巨额的执行经费。

In the cities decent pensions are almost as rare, except among workers in the privileged state sector. In 2008 only 17% of migrants in urban areas were enrolled in any pension scheme at all, the government admits. Young urban couples, many of them without siblings, will find themselves with four parents to look after and will themselves have only one child (known as the 4-2-1 phenomenon). If they are sensible, they will save hard to prepare for such a future, which will not help the government’s efforts to shift China towards more consumption-led growth.

在城市里，除了享受特权的国家部门的员工，没有人会得到一笔可观的养老金。政府坦白道，2008年，总共只有17%的城市农民工被纳入了养老金计划。年轻的城市夫妇，许多都没有兄妹，所以要赡养两对父母，自己也只养育一个孩子（这是人们熟知的4-2-1现象）。如果这些夫妇明智的话，他们会为负担沉重的未来未雨绸缪，努力攒钱，但这会与政府努力把中国转型成一个靠内需拉动经济增长的经济体的目标相背离。

A big increase in the retirement age is overdue. In practice this is now around 56. But the official age of 60 for men and 50 for women (55 for civil servants) has not changed since 1951, when average life expectancy was 46 compared with today’s 73. Like their counterparts in the West, many workers groan about having to plod on for longer. Online polls, which are likely to reflect the views of younger people, have found strong opposition to any rise in the retirement age. Many fear that it could make it even harder for university graduates to find jobs (last year 6.3m students graduated from Chinese universities, up from 1m in 1999, so competition is fierce). When French workers went on strike last year over plans to raise their retirement age, officials in China hastily denied reports that they were planning to do anything of the sort. The people’s will is almost as much of an obstacle to reform in China as the party’s.

中国政府推迟了退休年龄的上调。目前，中国的实际退休年龄约56岁。但是法定退休年龄规定男性的退休年龄为60岁，女性为50岁（公务员是55岁）这自从1951年来没有变过，但相比现在中国的人均73岁的预期寿命，当时的人均寿命预期只有46岁。许多工人和西方的工人一样，抱怨自己不得不工作更久。最能反映年轻人意愿的网上民意测试发现，年轻人十分反对退休年龄的上调。许多人担心上调退休年龄会使大学生找工作变得更难（中国的大学毕业生从1999年的100万上升到了去年的630万，因此，职场竞争变激烈了）。去年，当法国工人因为政府公布的上调他们退休年龄的计划而罢工时，中国官员们立刻否认了他们正在计划的此类事项的报告。人民的意愿和政党的势力一样，几乎都成为了中国改革的障碍。