Financial security of urban retirees

This essay explores the impact of the post-Mao economic reforms on the financial security of urban pensioners by focusing on 3 issues: (1) changes in the financial value of pensions, (2) male-female differences in financial security, and (3) role of post-retirement employment. Drawing on materials from official statistical yearbooks, Chinese scholarly journals, and interviews with urban retirees during eight trips to China in 1979, 1981, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1990, and 1992, the author concludes that despite some weakening of social welfare commitments and greater privatization of the economy, the reforms of the 1980s did not create an obvious class of financially disadvantaged urban elderly although they initially appear to have increased male-female inequalities. Nevertheless in contrast to elderly interviewed by the author in 1979 and 1981, those interviewed in 1990 and 1992 expressed more anxiety about their long term financial security and this was true for both males and females. This heightened sense of insecurity appears to be the result of two post-1985 phenomena which undermine faith in the long term adequacy of current pensions: inflation and growth of highly paid postretirement jobs open to only a minority.