exceedingly common w
Chinese people are living longer, happier lives, but at what cost?
I see that Economist finally got honest about their own motto
nope! that is an accurate depiction lmao
https://www.economist.com/china/2021/06/22/chinas-average-retirement-age-is-ridiculously-low-54
The government’s efforts to raise it face stiff opposition
Is the government actually trying to raise it or is this editorializing on the Economists part? I don’t have an account so I can’t read the full article.
Entire article text (yes it really is this short)
AT ABOUT 54, the average age of retirement in China is among the lowest in the world. This is a problem. Since standards were set, life expectancy has soared while the number of working adults—those whose labour, in effect, supports retirees—has begun to shrink. But persuading people that they should work longer is proving hard. In 2008 the government said it was mulling the idea of raising retirement ages, but backed away amid a public outcry. Now it feels it can wait no longer.
The pressure to act is evident. Current retirement ages were set in the 1950s, when the average person was expected to die before reaching that stage. For most men in China the age is 60, much lower than the average of 64.2 in the OECD, a club mostly of rich countries. For female civil servants the age is 55; for blue-collar women it is 50.
Can’t even be bothered to throw in some stats or ANYTHING about the economic state that would necessitate this, just some platitudes about how it’s “too young” with no analysis, pseudo intellectual or otherwise, at all
ed. Just FYI to anyone reading this, you can bypass a lot of paywalls by just disabling JavaScript using uBlock Origin, then refreshing the page. Works for a LOT of news sites, but you do of course lose any java based items on the page.
god dam, that sounds downright utopian. to be done with work at 54 is to have the opportunity for an entire 3rd act in life.
Old people in China do all kinds of stuff, they’re usually out and about chilling with friends and family. Public parks are full of them dancing and exercising. There is a social life available to most they is missing in Western countries.
And best of all, China makes sure to build enough stuff so everyone can enjoy life. One thing boomers in the US do that I don’t necessarily fault them for is that they love life and keep participating in society, where it irks me is their nimbyism so they refuse to let more stuff be built so everyone, young and old, can participate in society. Of course, when there’s scarcity, people with deeper pockets (like older people who’s homes have seen some of the fastest value appreciation in world history) will always win.
Sure, sometimes I can envy that boomers got “lucky”, but seeing those videos of people young and old coexisting helps establish its largely a non-antagonistic contradiction.
we should all aspire to become chinese-level aunties and uncles before we’re 60. just hanging out doing taiji in the park in our pajamas, loudly playing chess with our buddies, evening guangchangwu in ugly tights with a suitcase speaker blasting old people bass, then hanging out at the night market before going home for 9hrs of solid sleep
my parents sort of retired around 65, and that was because they were boomers who saved and were fortunate. and even with that, though they have traveled a lot–not what i would do with my retirement, but whatever–a lot of their time is spent managing the symptoms of physical decline.
the retiring genXers at my work are retiring far later than they’d like, because the retirement options are shit, they are broke, and they need the bumped up healthcare because they all seem to be in far worse shape now than the boomers were at their age. one guy is like wiped out, mid 60s and gonna have to work another 10 years, because his wife has health problems and she’s 10 years younger than him, so he’ll be 75 by the time she can get medicare.
the job lock aspect of private health insurance is brutal. even if you have worked your whole life at a decent job, paid off your little house and vehicle, have a really solid amount of savings, and don’t have kids to support you still gotta work because getting a new hip or a stent without insurance is like game-fucking-over in bills.
Yes and that is the one-two punch of American private healthcare. The industry itself is parasitic, sucking up massive profits for doing nothing except prevent care and haggle down treatments. And for the wider bourgeoisie, by tying healthcare to employment, it disciplines labor better than any Pinkerton ever could.
The toll it takes on human life is incredible given how completely unnecessarily all of it is.
