The ever-changing world of retirement

- This is round table. (upbeat music) - Retirement is not what it used to be.

“In fact, Shanghai just launched a sweeping plan”

to reintegrate seniors into the workforce, shifting the focus from caring for the elderly to empowering them. Why is retiring at 60 fading so fast? Coming to you live from our studios in Beijing,

this is round table. I'm Steve, thanks for being with us today. And for the show, I'm with Fifei and Yushan.

First up, forget that image of retirement

as a quiet life of leisure. A chapter spent on the sidelines. Nope, no longer, and groundbreaking move. 28 government departments in Shanghai have come together to launch a comprehensive plan

designed to reintegrate seniors into the workforce. It signals a fundamental shift in mindset, moving from simply caring for the elderly to truly empowering the group as active contributors to society.

But why is this traditional retire at 60 model collapsing? Or at least it seems like it is in many parts of the world. What's behind it?

Demographics perhaps economics perhaps and it could be even cultural. And now cities in China and other parts of the world are making those changes. The answers are reshaping what it means to grow older.

“And I think it's time to rethink the value of age,”

Fifei and Yushan get afternoon to you. Yeah, and I think it's true. The first thing I thought about when I thought about this story was my dad. My dad took, and my parents are too completely different people.

My mom has never stopped working.

She's 84 years old and she was a nurse in a hospital for a while then she was a restaurant owner than she owned fashion stores. She was a real estate agent for a period of time. She just did whatever she wanted. But she loved working so much that she never stopped.

My dad was a high school vice principal for 34 years in America and in Canada. And he took an early retirement package. And that's a separate story. He was complaining that kids aren't the way they used to be

and attitudes have changed and all this stuff. But his first opportunity he took to retire. He took it. My mom never really took that opportunity at all. So it depends on the person, perhaps,

and it depends on situations as well. But let's start the story specifically in Shanghai and see where we go from there. Yeah, precisely like you said, Steve, like when it comes to work and career development,

different people have different goals and different values.

“And I think this time in Shanghai, they launched a plan”

basically is trying to provide a more convenient easier environment for the seniors who wish that they can stay in the workplace a little longer. And especially for those between the age of 60 to 70, which we call them, quote unquote, the young old,

that they are still quite energetic and still willing to contribute to the society. But somehow there will be some barriers along the way. Especially when they try to get re-employed in the society. And now this time in Shanghai,

we launched a plan, I think, on March 12th, that aims to create an age-friendly job environment while also improving human resources services to facilitate employment who those who are willing to continue to work.

Yeah, they call it active aging, don't they? It's something that perhaps we've been overlooking in the past. And when people age, we call them seniors, we call them elders. But nowadays, at least in the case in China,

as well as in many other countries, these group of people above their 50s and 60s, they still have a lot of potential. And that's precisely why we're transforming and aging population from a demographic challenge

into a demographic divide. And that's according to Jiang Trimbo, Professor the School of Labor Economics of Capital University of Economics and Business. So he named it that way, because traditionally,

demographic divide and comes from a large cohort of young people entering the workforce. But nowadays, as populations age, this traditional divide and kind of diminishes diminishes a little bit.

And we now start leveraging the elderly workforce. And really giving them the opportunities that they're looking for and give them the protection that comes along with it. - Yeah, it's kind of a worldwide thing.

It seems like, right? It's not necessarily specific to any one particular culture around the world, but we have this idea that when people become 60, and they leave the workforce that they're gone.

And they are never to return to the workforce.

you shine, you set it, they still have a lot to give. And sometimes they want to give what they have to give.

“And that's why they've been described just demographic”

dividends. All right, so what are some of the detailed measures? You said Shanghai put out some different policies. What are the details there?

- Well, I think first of all,

is that the authorities are encouraging businesses and social organizations and companies to develop diverse and personalized job roles tailored to seniors, health conditions, and skill sets. - Likewise.

- For example, we're talking, let's talk about a logistics company, for instance. It needs a lot of people to manage the inventory, for instance. And that means, on the top of our head, probably means they need workers that do a lot of heavy lifting,

which cannot be handled by someone in their 60s or even 70s. - Sure. - But what they can do, they can get a job

“that's called quality control and inventory auditor,”

meaning that they can sit there using tablets

to verify stock counts and check for packaging defects.

And they can't work for like four hours a day, which is much shorter compared to eight hours of heavy lifting, which is more suitable for younger person. But this kind of position can leverage the seniors attention to detail and patience and also remove

that physical strength of lifting a lot of boxes and working for long hours and also more flexible. So when it comes to retirees, for instance, they're just looking for a couple of hours out of their day to make some supplement to their home income.

This could be one of the positions. - Four hour shift is probably perfectly suited to a lot of schedules for people in that age demographic as well. A lot of firms engaged in elderly product development and services, they are encouraged to hire seniors

as project evaluators where they can leverage their perspectives to help grow the industry. What would be an example of that? - Yeah, that's so cool. 'Cause Fifei, you just mentioned the quality control

and inventory auditor. How about senior user experience consultants? And I'm saying it with admiration because that sounds really cool. Now that the tech startups is developing a new smart health watch

designed to monitor heart rates and also detect falls for the elderly, which are conditions that they encounter, they have higher possibility of encounter in their daily life. So instead of just going on everything

on based on theory and based on what's written in paper, what's potentially risks that these elders can get, they actually invite elders to join in the trials. And before the product ever launches, these seniors take the prototype and test it

in real-world scenarios. So this kind of direct hand-on feedback really forces the company to redesign some of the things that they think is gonna work. And yeah, sometimes it's just like, for example,

the SOS button is too flush with the screen. I can't press it with my fingers that I don't have enough force for it. You know, those details that can really be catered to and better for the elders regarding product design.

- This font size is not easily readable or things like that. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. If you have products that are designed for the elderly, then why not have the elderly involved

in the product design from the first place? - Exactly.

We can never be put in their shoes precisely,

especially for a younger generation. But when it comes to re-employment,

“I think a larger proportion of these workforce”

we're talking about today is about also re-harring those retired. Especially for teachers, doctors, scientists, not only they have like years, even decades of expertise in their field,

a lot of them are willing to continue down to work. - So coming back to their workplace like a mentor? - Yeah, in the like a mentor, for example, I think example could be happening on a community level, like in a community clinic.

A lot of these kind of health facilities are struggling with a shortage of experienced medical workers. But when it comes to training this medical workers is for one, they need somebody to teach them hands-on on a daily basis.

And so these kind of retired the doctors, nurses can come to the clinic and sort of reveal, for example, extremely complex cases, training this younger doctors and nurses or even having some weekend workshops.

You know, explaining a lot of problems

- You know what's really interesting

is that this reminds me of my mom. My mom has one year away from retiring and her department already sends out invitation because she's been working as a professional nurse in the hospital for over 30 years.

And the department is like, we really value your skills and your professionality. So would you, if you would want to, we would be very happy to sign more years with you, starting from six months after your official retirement

“so that if you want to, you can keep on working.”

And the mom said, no, I'm having enough and I want my retired life to be in a yard, planting vegetables, having cows, you know, doing whatever I want. So, me mentioning that is, if you want to,

of course, there are opportunities open up for you,

not only in the same divisions, but also, like you mentioned, the community clinics. Sometimes just even like health check facilities who hire, I've seen a lot of those doctors who just do the morning shifts of doing your basic health check.

And that's it. And then they go home. So there are opportunities available as long as you want to keep on working at the retirement age. And also, I think this is one of the bottleneck

or problem that this Shanghai plan is trying to tackle this, for example, when it comes to doctors and nurses. In real, in full-time job positions, it's very intense work. Yeah.

The need to work like eight hours non-stop and can be really, really tired and thinking about retiring their 60s or even 70s is not possible for them to handle like 100 patients. Well, I mean, possible or not.

They just don't want to. Yeah. This is the advantage of retirement is that you get to play with your schedule a little bit so that it aligns with what you need in your own life.

But now, like, for example, with this sort of mentoring program, they can come in for like three, four hours a day or maybe three times a week, not a full-time position, but they can still contribute. They have like decades of experiences

when it comes to medicine, nursing. These is the kind of skill says that they can offer, but the younger practitioners don't have. I mean, I think it's easy to understand why this would be attractive from, for example,

“you shine your mom's hospitals point of view, right?”

Or any hospital or any school who's bringing back a teacher as a mentor, it's easy to understand why that would benefit them because it would be a great opportunity to pass that experience onto the younger staff. And there are other examples, as well, district aging offices.

They are also working with relevant departments to establish a pool of what they call silver-haired experts. Volunteer teams, senior volunteer teams, inspectors, like, as you mentioned, education, but also tech and social work.

The tech example that I came across is about IT trainers. So if you have, or if there is, a community center that wants to launch, let's say, a digital literacy program, but they don't have, maybe the budget, or they don't have a full-time position available

for their own IT trainers. Retired engineers, retired tech experts, can, if they're looking in the same district, working, sorry, living in the same district, and it's within the community, then that can be

an attractive position too. So there's lots being created. They call that to a silver-haired expert pool. I want to, sorry, Tintra, I want to come back. Remind me if I forget, I want to come back to these terms,

these job titles in a little while. I have a little bit to say about that. Let's talk about the government, though. Why is the government suddenly treating seniors as a human resource treasure of sorts?

Well, first of all, the world is aging Steve. Not only in China, but on a global scale. But in particular, for example, in the city of Shanghai, it's basically China's fastest and biggest aging CT in the whole of country.

And I think we have a status that, by the end of 2024, Shanghai's registered population aged 60 and above

has surpassed 5.7 million accounting for close to 40%

of the total population. So every one out of 3 people in Shanghai aged above 60 years old. I didn't know that's the oldest city population wise age-wise. That's the oldest city in China.

Yes, yes.

“So that's why they're facing this kind of problem.”

And also, when we are talking about the young old cohort, aged between 60 and 70s, the poor largely healthy

So it's very natural, I think, for society's start thinking about how to facilitate those who are willing to work. But have a lot of hurdles and barriers along the way and stop slowing down their path in their career development. So there was a story that I saw a few weeks ago in Xinhua

that talked about the life expectancy increase in China, came from the head of China's National Health Commission, talking about the fact that it had increased by 1.32 years in the last six years since 2020. And now it's up to 70, over 79.

That's for the country, but in Shanghai, the life expectancy has already reached 85 years old. Again, that's top in the country. So it makes sense to take advantage of such a large group of people who are basically not everyone, of course,

but a large group of people where many of the group members are saying, we're here, hello, we're ready to help and work and do whatever, just not at 45 hours a week, please. Yeah, I can't stop thinking about my dad who retired a couple of years ago.

He just can't stop thinking about work. You know, he loves his field. He just can't ask what he did. He's in engineering. He developing hydropower plants.

So he always keeping up with the delicious development.

And I'm almost very curious about why do you still care, like you retired. Nothing happened in that field is related to you anymore. And he said, no, that's my field. That's my career path.

That's my life. I cannot just exit at 60 years old. I still have a lot to give and I'm still willing to give. So and he's not really happy staying at home.

“So that's why we decided to encourage him”

to go out there and see more opportunities. That's when we mentioned in the beginning, right? I mean, this, this is a person by person case for your dad. It sounds like he didn't want to retire when he did. My dad couldn't wait.

You Sean's mom has one foot out the door already of the hospital. It sounds like so yeah, it really does depend on the person. But I totally understand it. You know, there are a lot of movies. I think that came out of Hollywood.

Maybe in China too, about someone dealing with going through retirement. And I say going through retirement intentionally because for many people, they don't know what to do with themselves when the work suddenly stops. Yeah, because in the case of your father,

“a like you just mentioned, that's what he takes pride in.”

That's where his goal, if not the past, central of life has been for him.

And he's always, and he's really into what he's doing, what he's been doing for years.

So really for these experienced professionals, they take this very seriously. And also some of them possesses really high level skills and rich experience too. That really also meets the huge talent gap in today's job market. Because nowadays we have a lot of job that require professionality. And if not, may I use the word craftsmanship in some cases where the senior working professionals

can really take up the lead and train the younger ones. And that's why a lot of facilities and a lot of organizations are really looking for talents like the senior talents like this to fill up the space and train the younger ones. There's evidence in the numbers too that support that the demand for these positions is there. What I didn't know, Xiao Hongshu, the social media platform.

Also kind of functions partly as a job seeking platform. And it's trending these days with services helping newly retired elder parents find employment. And there's one blue collar focused recruitment platform, maybe probably more than one is a matter of fact.

“But the proportion of young old job seekers, what was the definition of young old, again, 60 or 60?”

And 17, the young old job seekers category has been rising year after year. And the number of active job seekers aged 55 and above on some recruitment platforms is increasing annually by double digit percentages.

Yeah, and there are estimates actually saying that the number of these retiree workers has reached 87 million and 120 million in China.

And also surprisingly, a lot of these job positions are in labor intensive industries like catering, lactation, security, and construction. And frankly, there is also a massive four-tailed workers in this industry is exactly like domestic services,

So we are seeing this not overlap as well when it comes to demand and supply side.

It's just how to match them together. Sure. Yeah. And this isn't just a Chinese issue. We're seeing this in other parts of the world too globally. This retire at 60 or retire at 65, which was a very rigid model. It seems to be disappearing. Now, there's reasons for it increased life expectancy.

“Also, a growing pressure, I think, on pension systems.”

And this has caused many developed nations to enact legislation that would link retirement age to life expectancy. And they're implementing more flexible retirement systems. A Germany is an example of this.

They have legislated a gradual increase in the retirement age to 67 years old, which provides some more time for people to work.

And among the people who are eligible 72% of people age 60 to 64 are still working. That's data from the OECD. And in America, it's happening too. The growth of the 65 plus or over 65 workforce is increasing. I found this from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Participation for Americans over 65 has more than doubled since the 1980s. And today, roughly one in five adults age 65 to 74 are still working.

So it's very similar to China as well. I think one of the reasons, of course, is most of the population lives longer now. And also healthier now. And so I think it's very fun if you watch online.

A lot of the videos are showing how energetic Chinese seniors can be. They dance in the parks.

They go hiking in the mountains. They go, you know, self-driving, longer, long distances. I mean, thousands of kilometers drive themselves. So they're really energetic. And some of them may be are more on the side if I want to travel. I want to have a little farm growing my own vegetables and relaxed type. And others are like, like, my dad who just want to continue to work.

“And I think that's why right now, not only here in China, but globally, governments are thinking”

about implementing a flexible, employment schedule. And we've only mentioned Shanghai so far by the way, but it's happening in other cities around the country. In January of 2026, Chongqing issued a similar plan. They outlined 35 specific measures there. And those measures explicitly include the elderly and the public employment service system and explore work-related injury insurance coverage for over-age workers as well. That's one example. Also, earlier this year,

in fact, weeks ago, Tianjin did something as well. Yeah, in Tianjin municipality, right next to Beijing, they printed and distributed a guideline that's comprehensively advancing the goals of ensuring the elderly have opportunities for learning, enjoyment, and contribution. That's a vague and wide definition, but we see the attempts there of trying to make this active elder or active aging more practical in Tianjin. Then also in the Mongolia too, right now. Yeah,

in my hometown, in Mongolia, you showed a really similar document. And one measure I think is really interesting is that they're further improving the management of rural public welfare position, meaning that for individuals aged 60 and above, who are a capable of meeting job requirements, and that age limit can be extended to 70 after assessment. And I think one of the reasons is because a lot of villages, not only in Mongolia, in a lot of parts of China, young people are moving out,

but the community still need to run, you know, still need to operate. When you say moving out,

“do you mean moving away? Yeah, moving away, moving to the other parts of the country. And that's why”

they are sort of the country thinking about just to have an elderly supporting helping elderly system, that the young old, 60 to 70 years old can help those in their 80s and even 70, 90s. The reason, one of the reasons that the rigid, if we could use that word again, retirement model, 60 years old, 65 years old, has been put in place, is because you need people to exit the job market so that jobs can be created for the people entering the job market. And that was exactly

why I said that my father took an early retirement package. That's why he took the early retirement package. Because there was a surplus of teachers in Nova Scotia. There's a lot of teachers colleges in Nova Scotia, which means you have those teachers coming out of university ready to

package to people of my father's age so that they could leave and then there would be empty spaces

“at the schools, right? When you have people coming back into the workforce after the age of retirement”

or extending their time in the workforce, one of the negative side effects can be increased competition in the job market. It can make it harder for young people to find jobs because those empty spaces aren't there. Are we expected to see that kind of situation in China with Shanghai or Tianjin's or Chongqing's measures? Not really because instead of thinking of this as a head-to-head kind of

competition like young people have among each other, seniors and young people, we're basically talking

about working in different lanes. For example, the divide between professions and also age group is really, it's very real, at least here in the case in China, where peak earning years for workers cluster around ages of 35 to 39, mostly in booming sectors such as the internet and industry were AI, as we mentioned it more and more these days, so that's not really a market for seniors, so they're not looking for the same positions. And I mean, still for workers aged between

13 or 50 actually, they're still the backbone of the market, of any industry out there,

“but when it comes to what seniors aged, but above 60 can offer, I think expertty, as we mentioned,”

can be one, and also there are other skill sets that they can leverage, you know, the experience, the wisdom, the specialized skills to do the jobs that younger people often cannot do yet. So they can sort of cooperate with each other like the mentoring program we talked about among doctors and nurses and possibly in other areas as well, that the elderly, the senior workers can come into the place and help the younger ones. And actually, the purpose of getting back

to work, among between the seniors and younger generation, is also very different. I looked at a survey report back in 2022 that said nearly 50% of the elderly, when they are returning to the workforce, they're looking for personal and social value. They're not after the financial income is not on their top read-art anymore. Even probably 30% of them are still seeking re-employment to supplement household income, or to meet their higher level consumption.

It's just a cherry on top. So to speak, they're looking for different fulfillment types of fulfillment from the job. Okay. So Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin, is this going to go nationwide? Do we expect it to go nationwide or not so much? Not really. Again, I feel like I'm answering not really quite a bit this time. Well, integrating seniors systematically into the workforce, it is really, at least for the case of China, an inevitable step for developed cities in many ways,

Shanghai already has the right foundations in place, because talking back to Shanghai,

it's advantage is in many moves. First of all, the economy keeps growing despite an aging population.

Looking at other countries, for example, there's been similar cases, and Shanghai is really taking the lead here. Also, the city has the diverse mix of industries, because there are sectors reserved for the young, like the high-tech ones we mentioned, but also plenty of roles suitable for

“seniors. And that's why we also mentioned the very long, if not longer, kind of life expectancy,”

average life expectancy in Shanghai. 85%. All of which makes cities such as Shanghai a good example, but it doesn't mean that each and ever province has the potential and capability to meet that same sense. But I think coming from out of from this planning Shanghai, what they did on the piloted can be shared or learned some lessons, maybe can be shared and learned nationwide. For example,

when it comes to protection to this senior workers, there's basically, I think, a loophole

in the legal system right now, when it comes to rehiring somebody who's already retired in the workforce, what is the contract for them? Who is going to be there to pay for their injuries? If injuries happen on the ground? Same types of issues when we were discussing the non-contract part-time younger workers, too. Yeah, so I think this plan also put a lot of focuses on providing

as promised, they get the safety net when they need it. So and what kind of changes we need to

make to the legal system, this can be watched and learned in Shanghai. All right, I want to go back to these terms. Were they silver, silver hair to expert? Okay, that's one. Senior user experience consultant, silver doctor mentorship. Can we, can we get rid of the condescending terms, silver, silver? Why do we need silver? Why can't we just, senior, I understand, because senior doesn't

imply anything about age, right? Do you see what I'm getting at here? Senior can relate to your job

“experience, refer to your job experience, silver hair to expert? Why do you need to call me a silver”

hair to expert? Why can't you just call me an expert? It's actually in the next bird. In the beginning, I said, we need to rethink how we think about age and I think redefining these titles is a good step in that direction. True, you're exactly, and especially when we're living most

on average people are living till they're 80 years old, me 60s the new young anyway. So I mean,

you've worked on all 61-year-olds. We're talking about taking off the barriers when it comes to age,

“when it comes to different definition of who you are, the terms can be one point to start.”

Have you thought about you, Sean? Obviously, it's, well, I assume it's years and years away, I guess I don't know for sure, but have you thought about retirement about what stage of your life you would like to retire in? I already can't wait to be honest, but right after this show. Yeah, I guess I have inherited that front my mom, but yeah, maybe at that point I will feel proud of the career that I've had and feel that I have a few pieces of work that I can

“replay to my grandchildren in the future and tell them, yeah, this is my prime, you know? Have you”

considered it, Fife? Yeah, a little bit, especially my parents are entering retirement in the past a couple of years. I started to imagine what my retirement would look like and I really like the idea of exploring new opportunities when I don't have the chance and energy and time to do that now. So maybe going to study designing and the country could be a good choice, so not working. But yeah, I don't think I ever want to retire. Really, I can tell. I don't think so. I love what

I do too much. It's not considered stressful work to me. I get a lot of reward out of doing a job like this. So I'll hopefully knock on wood. I've been knocking a lot on wood recently too. Hopefully I'll be in this type of position for a while. By the way, of the titles that I complained about today, there was one that I learned that I really like actively aging. I'm going to use that to now. How you doing, Steve? I'm just actively aging. Pretty good.