No deferment of retirement age - yet

Chinese authorities have said the country has no immediate plans to defer the retirement age.

"We are indeed studying the deferment of the retirement age but it does not mean we would change the current retirement policy right now," an official with the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security was quoted as saying by the People's Daily.

The ministry said earlier this month that the country would introduce a policy at the "proper time" and it would start related deliberations later this year.

Currently in China, the retirement age for female workers is 50, female government officials, 55, and male workers, 60.

Experts say the retirement age policy was made some 60 years ago when life expectancy in China was comparatively low. Now, as Chinese people have an average life expectancy of 73.5 years, the issue needs to be reconsidered, as is being done in other countries.

Tang Jun, a social policy researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said white-collar workers and those in the creative sector such as college professors, doctors and technicians might welcome the deferment of the retirement age but manual workers might not.

Tang also warned that the possible retirement age deferment would hurt younger people especially college graduates' seeking work.

Tang said China creates 10 to 12 million new jobs every year. More than 30 percent of them are created by workers who retire.

"So if the retirement age was deferred, every year 3 to 4 million job vacancies would disappear," he said.