China Confronts Workforce Drop With Retirement-Age Delay

China plans to raise the retirement age for the first time since the 1950s, as policy makers confront the prospect of a shrinking workforce that damps economic growth.

The age will rise gradually, Hu Xiaoyi, a vice minister of human resources and social security, said this month. China’s compulsory retirement ages, now 50 for most women and 60 for men, are likely in 2020 to be about five years higher than they are now, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.