Insider–Outsider Divide and Preferences on the Extension of Retirement Age

• In Event: Politics of Aging: A Global Perspective

Abstract

This study investigates relationships between the status of the labor market and social protection and policy preferences on the extension of retirement age in China.

Drawing on the nationally representative China Labor-force Dynamics Survey 2014 data (N = 5367), this study compared the policy preferences of labor market insiders and outsiders and examined the association between social protection and policy preferences.

Results consistently show that labor market and social protection insiders strongly resist the extension of retirement age policy in China. However, only a subgroup of social protection outsiders, the participants of health insurance programs for rural residents, favor the proposed retirement delay.

Policy preferences on the extension of retirement age divide along the cleavage based on insiders and outsiders of the labor market and social protection. Findings of this study provide a structural explanation on the retirement age debate. They highlight the insider–outsider divide as a policy feedback on policy development and emphasize the importance of a unified social protection and the inclusive and universal coverage of social policy reforms in Asian newly industrialized countries.

Author

• Zhuoyi Wen, Lingnan University