The nation's pension market, which is still largely unexplored and full of potential, faces some challenges such as difficulties in merging with the medical system and limited government pension reserves, according to a forum jointly organized by the Global Times and the Life Times over the weekend.
As of the end of 2015, there were 222 million people in China aged 60 or above, accounting for 16.1 percent of the total population. It is estimated that the number will jump to 500 million by 2050, or 36.5 percent of the population, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, told the forum in Beijing on Saturday.
Considering the nation's huge untapped "blue ocean," the number of qualified pension institutions is not in proportion to the market potential, Zhuang Ning, director of the Information Planning Department at the National Health and Family Planning Commission, told the forum.
And even if there were more such institutions, "the vacancy rate of nursing beds in those facilities might still reach 50 percent without professional medical service," as many of the elderly suffer from organ failure, Zhuang said, highlighting the importance of combining the pension industry with the medical sector.
"The lack of professional talent has been a key bottleneck impeding the merger of the two industries," as most nurses at pension institutions lack professional medical knowledge, especially in terms of rehabilitation, Li Ying, deputy director at the Health Science Center of Peking University, told the forum.
Therefore, Li suggested that universities, vocational schools and nursing schools should create a new major that offers "one-stop" training to solve these problems.
In addition to a shortage of qualified staff, there is also the absence of a robust retirement system, experts said at the forum.
Currently, the public pension system, which is included in the national social security fund, only covers the living costs of the retired, despite 12 consecutive years of increases in employees' pension ratios, Jin Weigang, the director of the Social Insurance Research Academy under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said at the forum.
China has become an aging society. In the next few years, more people will retire and fewer young people will enter the workforce. As a result, the country may run short of retirement funds in the near future, Chu Fulin, professor at the Insurance Institute of Central University of Finance and Economics, said at the forum.
