MGNT2040D |
Aging Working Force: Raising Retirement Age
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Group 5
Timothy Lam 1155000345
Emily Wong 1155000113
Cherry Yuen 1155000043
Pollyana Suen 1155002420
Andy Lee 1155004273
Tobby Lui 1155002981
Aging Working Force: Raising Retirement Age
Introduction
Recently, the birth rate is decreasing rapidly in Hong Kong. We are facing an ageing population problem and the labor force structure is imbalance. What’s more, the government’s retirement plan is a failure as it does not provide enough financial assistance to them, both by publicly and privately managed plan. The elderly cannot afford the living after retirement by their private savings and insurance.
We strongly suggest the government to set a clear regulation and extending the retirement age to remedy the problem. We will investigate other countries which are facing the same ageing problem and their decisions on extending the retirement age. Furthermore, there are lots of other ways to solve the problem. We will discuss three of them and compare the benefits and drawbacks on each alternative.
Reason of the proposal
Hong Kong has one of the world’s lowest birth rates—0.9 per woman of child-bearing age, far below the replacement rate of 2.1. The city's elderly dependency ratio is set to rise from 161 per 1,000 in 2003 to 428 per 1,000 in 2033. That means more elderly dependents will have to be supported by a smaller working population. Look in the past; we could see that there is a trend of increasing dependency ratio. According to the report of demographic trends in Hong Kong, the Elderly dependency ratio is increasing rapidly from 97 to 168 during 1981 to 2006. The median age is increasing from 26.3 to 39.6. However, the percentage of Aged 0–14 is decreasing from 24.6 to 13.7. These figures suggest that the population is aging, together with a low birth rate the dependency is increasing in Hong Kong which creates a burden to the working force....