摘 要：In recent years, using the benefit ratio as a proxy, the replacement rate of China’s earnings-related public pension scheme has been widely incorrectly reported as “a sharp decline from approximately 70% in 2000 to 40% in 2020 due to the population aging”. This strategic conclusion has been dominating the agenda of China’s current pension reform: significantly expanding privately funded pensions. This paper rectifies this error and offers an alternative perspective to tackling pension challenges. The analysis concludes as follows. First, conceptual differences indicate that replacement rate and benefit ratio cannot be used interchangeably. Additionally, by decomposition, the replacement rate is a component of the benefit ratio. Second, the true replacement rate has remained stable and high at approximately 60% and has been increasing since October 2014. Since 2016, the reduction in the contribution rate has made the scheme more cost-effective for participants. Third, the decline in the benefit ratio is unrelated to population aging; rather, it arises from overlooked structural changes in pension models and coverage, as well as overestimated average wages. Fourth, in the public sector, the benefit ratio has been approximately double that of the private sector; and the (quasi-) mandatory pension contribution rate has reached 36%, its resulting net replacement rate could be approximately 100%, already excessively high. Fifth, given the significant drop in China’s total fertility rate from 1.47 in 2019 to 1.0 in 2023 and the resulting rapidly rising indexed old-age dependency ratio, more resources should be directed toward promoting fertility rather than expanding privately funded pensions.
关键词：Pension, replacement rate, benefit ratio, population ageing, old-age dependency ratio, total
fertility rate
刊 物：本文日文版已发表于《金融评论》第163期。