調(diào)高退休年齡英文論文.docx

Is the Increasing Retirement Age a Blessing or a Curse?Word count:2353Is the Increasing Retirement Age a Blessing or a Curse?1.IntroductionGreat Britain is facing a severe problem of all the ageing society. The British population is turning old as a result of the constantly extending lifespan and the lack of birth from young families concerned with the high life cost. In the United Kingdom, there was an annual increase from 15.8% to 18.0% in the proportion of people aged 65 and over in the period from 2006 to 2016. In contrast, the occupation of working-age population decreased from 64.9% in 2006 to 63.1% in 2016(ONS,2017b). In general, a decreasing amount of people is working to feed an increasing number of elders.The heavier burden from increasing number of elders finally would finally become the problem of the U.K. government. The pension expenditure and the budget for medical insurance will increase synchronously with the rise in the number of old people. Regarding the pensions, it is a necessary guarantee for all the citizens to live a life when they are too old to meet the requirement of a job. The British state pension age is 65, which means over 18% British people can receive pensions from the government without a job. The pension expenditure in the financial year 2014/15 was 108 billion pounds which occupied 42% welfare spending of the British government (ONS,2017a). Medical insurance in Britain, which accounts for the medical services of British people, is called the NHS (National Health Service) and is mainly funded from tax. As the rising average age, medical requirement is rocketing, which can be indicated from the increasing department of health budget. In 5 years from 2010 to 2015, the department of health budget increased by 10 billion pounds from 111.9 billion pounds to 121.9 billion pounds, which was an approximate 8.9% rise (Department of Health,2016).Concerning the ageing problem in the United Kingdom, an increase in the retirement age may relieve the financial burden and help the government get through the difficult Brexit period. However, there are also cons and pros for the rise of retirement age: it may damage the life quality of citizens or bring some old people in dilemma. The paper aims to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of increasing retirement age and give out some suggestions. The second section provides some merits of the increase of retirement age and the third section presents the demerits. Both the beneficial and adverse effects will be evaluated and the suggestions will be presented in the fourth section. 2.Advantages of increasing the retirement age2.1. Pension expenditurePension is a monthly income, offered by government or employers for old people. In Britain, pension offered by British government is called State Pension, which is offered to citizens over their State Pension age. The State Pension age in the U.K. have changed in the past century.Hunter (2015) states that in 1908 the first pension introduced by British government was the Old Age Pension, which was paid to people over 70. Then in 1940 the retirement age plummeted to 65 for male and 60 for female. The number had not changed until 2010, where female State Pension age increased to 65.Source: HMT Public Expenditure Statistical AnalysesSource: Measuring Worth - UK GDPAs figure 1 presents, pension spending growth decreased from 4.4 billion which is 5.8% growth in 2010 to 3.9 billion which is 4.8% growth in 2011, but the rise rebounded to 9.8 billion, an 11.7% growth in 2012. Then the number of pension expenditure in 2016 is approximately twice as much as the number of 2007.The speed reduction in 2010 could be due to the retirement age increase for female in the same year, which means that the policy change could have positive effect on retarding the growing pension expenditure. However, as figure 2 shown, the GDP increase speed is significantly slower than the speed of pension, which is just about 25% growth in 10 years. This mismatch between economy development and pension spending might tighten the budget or even lead to deficit, which would increase the burden on government. According to the speed mismatch, it could be indicated that with the developing ageing society problem, the current pension policy might have inadequate efficiency against the growth of pension expenditure.Increase of State Pension age, with which pension would be offered to less people, would help to relieve the burden. According to the data of Office for National Statistics in 2015 shown in figure 3, if the State Pension age increases by 1 year, the estimated number of people who were offered pension would significantly decrease by seven hundred thousand approximately. With the current pension standard of 122.3 per week, the pension expenditure would reduce by 4.5 billion pounds per year approximately, and the savings would be about 13.8 billion pounds with a 3-year increase. Figure 3: the U.K. Population Grouped by AgeAge groupPopulation655349886765-67217148168-70205065771-73166737474-76136928577-79124300480-82101178183-8582077086-89720549Source: Office for National Statistics(2017c)With those savings, the criticized medical care in the U.K might be able to improve. As it is mentioned above, the expenditure of National Health Service is rocketing annually. However, it seems that the quality of medical treatment is at a lower level than citizens expectation, especially in the aspect of queue system, facility and staffs. With adequate financial support from the savings, medical care might meet the requirement of citizens. There may be a shorter queue for sick people, and victim of latent cancer might be treated timely to save precious life.Also, those savings might be inputted to export or import industrial to relieve the stress of trade in the period of Brexit, which would stimulate the slowing down economic growth of Britain. Subsidize for trade industry could be involved from the saving to support trade companies to go through this hard Brexit time.2.2. Labour quantityIn the Brexit period, there is an opinion that British exit from the European Union may lead to lack of skilled workers from European Union, and the labour may plummet in the process. Also, according to Lopez-Pacheo(2013) and Cesaratto(2006), ageing process might be accompanied with the lack of labour and skilled workers. There would be a serious labour problem while the ageing process meets the Brexit process. Lack of labour and skilled workers may restrict the growth of British economy. As the motivation of economy development, labour not only has significant impact in labour intensive industries such as agriculture, manufacture and textiles, but also deeply influence the service industry. Lack of labour might reduce the output of the related industries and retard economy development in the U.K. Moreover, skilled workers usually work as the core member which decides the efficiency and quality in product process or research project. Insufficient senior workers may lead to low produce rate and profit, that could cause huge loss in British economy.According to the British national condition, increasing retirement age could reverse the shortage of labour. The postponed retired people may offset the lack of labour and experienced worker. Especially in the situation of the U.K., with a high proportion of service industry, the elders would still be competent for light physical works.The life expectancy in Britain is estimated 79.1 for male and 82.8 for female according to the data from Office for National Statistics(2017b). 65, the official retirement age in the U.K., is an age in which British people may still be healthy and competent for a job. People in their 65 are usually in the condition that they could easily handle a position in non-manual working. To retire at such an age might be considered as a waste of labour in a level. In some areas, workers are usually considered as skilled in their mid-age. In other words, in the situation of current the U.K., the career of a skilled worker is about 15 to 20 years long. It can be easily calculated that with every 1-year increase in retirement age, the demand of skilled worker would reduce from 5% to 6.7%. With the extension of senior workers career, the shortage of skilled workers could be reversed.3. Disadvantages of increasing retirement age3.1. Individual life qualityIn general cognition, working life is different from retirement life, so there could be difference in individual life quality, that is commonly considered as worse life quality in working life for individual. However, life quality is a comprehensive concept, which is hard to evaluate by one index or from one aspect, so the common view might not be reliable. Felce and Perry (1995) established the overall model of life quality, which measures life quality from five aspects, physical wellbeing, material wellbeing, social wellbeing, development and activity and emotional wellbeing. The difference between working life and retirement life could be analyzed from the comparison on these aspects.Firstly, physical wellbeing seems the same for retiring and working. Practically and morally, positions for elders are usually lightly working, in other word, those jobs may not have more negative effect on health than the gardening in retired life. It comes to a draw at this aspect.The comparison on material wellbeing could indicate part of the difference. Considering the income variant, salary is usually higher than pension. That means in this aspect, working seems to own more merit than retirement.Regarding the social wellbeing, retirement may have the advantage over working. Retired people commonly own more private time for socializing which could bring better interpersonal relationship. Also, retired people are more likely to attend social event than the working people, which is believed to be an important method to satisfy the social demand.When it comes to the development and activity, the working elders may gain more competence while retired people own more happiness from hobbies in leisure time. The result of comparison on this aspect depends on values of different people. It is hard to weight the different pleasure from activities between working and retirement.Last but not least, retirement seems contribute more to life quality on emotional wellbeing. Retired people could live in a leisure way and achieve more satisfaction in usual, which may have a better emotion. Also, with the respect from finishing the career their self-esteem would experience a growth. On the other hand, although the jobs for elders could be non-manual, they may still suffer from working stress as well as depression from failure in working.As it is mentioned before, the importance proportion on these aspects differs from individuals, so there could not be an exact conclusion of the comparison. But the discussion above shows that on two aspects, retired people live a higher quality life, while the working group own one aspect. So individual life quality might be considered as a disadvantage of increasing retirement age.3.2. EmploymentIncreasing retirement age may retard the replace speed of positions. With the increased retirement age, there would be more over 65 people remaining at their position. Those remaining elders may occupy the positions, which could be for young people. The occupancy of positions may lead to exaltation of young people unemployment, and unemployed youth could be an uncertain variant, which might rise negative effect to social stability, as well as a waste on human resource.Moreover, increase in retirement age could change age structure of companies. Companies with high proportion of old employees may turn into the condition that is lack of vitality. Being short of energy, the ageing company could suffer from lack of motivation and ambition, which might practically appear as slow growth, reducing productivity and low profitability. After all, ageing company may be accompanied with higher human resource cost. 4.Evaluation and suggestionsAccording to the analysis above, there are merits and demerits on increasing retirement age. Evaluation is needed in weighing the cons and pros.The saving on pension expenditure could rise active influence in British government budget. Those saving can supply the material foundation of involving financial support policies, with which British economy may pass the ageing crisis. Also, the pros on the labour aspect could significantly reduce labour stress in the ageing society, and even the Brexit period, and make considerable contribution to stimulate economic vitality.In contrast, the disadvantages exist objectively, but some of the cons are inevitable while part of others could be offset by government policy or company treatment. Considering the shortcomings in employment, the problem above is unavoidable in an ageing society. The increase of retirement age may no intensify the defect, but shift those employment problems to an earlier date. Regarding the backwards of life quality, government could increase investments in infrastructure construction and involve some preferential policies towards old workers to compensate for the loss in life quality.In conclusion, the increase of retirement age could have significant positive effects to the British economy, and those benefit could be achieved by proactive adjustment of government retirement policy. On the other hand, the adverse effects seem to be inescapability and less detrimental. So, the merits of increasing retirement age weigh far over the demerits.For the U.K. government, although there are more advantages in the retirement age increase, it is necessary to make full use of the benefit from the increase. Financial support program may be involved to rescue the retarding British economy. Subsidize for trade industry could be given priority at this Brexit period which significantly retarded British economy in the process of exiting from European Union. The welfare policies are needed to improve at the same time. With the increase of retirement age, welfare policy is particularly important for compensating old workers.From the aspect of employers, the priority is to recognize the situation of ageing society.According to the condition of human resource, companies are required to make full use of all the employees, especially the old workers, as well as improve treatments for skilled workers.Regarding the individuals, real-hearted understanding is required to accept the backwards in life quality from retirement age increase. With the pride of rescuing the United Kingdom from economic crisis, working efficiency could witness a growth as well as the life quality may gain a rise in the emotional aspect. ReferencesCesaratto, S. (2006). Pensions in an Ageing Society: a Symposium. Review of Political Economy, p.295-299.Department of Health. (2016). Department of Health annual report and accounts 2015/16. Department of Health. Retrieved 8 26, 2017, from GOV.UK: .uk/government/publications/department-of-health-annual-report-and-accou