Old-age cover expansion continues

Authorities have affirmed that improved access to basic old-age insurance has been in effect since the adoption of improved management of insurance funds in the form of a unified approach.

China’s basic senior citizens’ insurance covered 1.05 billion people as of the end of 2022, an addition 24.3 million since the previous year, according to data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. The country formally launched national unified management of basic old-age insurance funds for enterprise employees in January 2022, to make the old-age insurance system fairer and more sustainable, stated a report by Xinhua.

Since then, steady reforms have been made, with wider insurance coverage and overall balance in revenue and expenditure of insurance funds, said Qi Tao, an official with the ministry. Under the unified management, pension policies have been basically unified nationwide so that the rights and interests of workers and retirees are better protected, he said.

Last year, CNY244 billion (USD36 billion) of old-age insurance funds were reallocated between provincial regions to support areas that had difficulty in making payments, according to Tao.

Fiscal subsidies from the central government were increased, while the system for local government investment in the insurance fund was improved, he noted.