纽约时报中文网 - 中英对照版-中英为什么越来越多中国年轻人不愿交养老金

China wants young people to put money away for retirement. Tao Swift, an unemployed 30-year-old, is not interested in hearing it.

中国希望年轻人为退休攒钱。现年30岁、没有工作的陶·斯威夫特（音）对此没什么兴趣。

“Retire with a pension?” he asked. “I don’t hold much hope that I can definitely get my hands on it.”

“退休领了养老金那种东西，”他问道。“我没有抱着太大的希望说一定能拿到手。”

Mr. Tao, who lives in the southern city of Chengdu, is not alone in thinking this way. On social media forums and among friends, young people are questioning whether to save for old age. Some are opting out, citing the shortage of jobs, low pay and their ambivalence about the future.

生活在南方城市成都的陶并不是唯一有这种想法的人。在网络论坛上和朋友间，年轻人在质疑是不是应该为养老攒钱。有人选择不交，理由是工作机会匮乏，工资低，觉得未来充满不确定性。

Their skepticism betrays the enormous challenge for China’s leaders. Over less than three decades, the country has changed from a young society to an aging one. Seven straight years of plummeting births are pushing up the day when there will be fewer people working than retirees.

他们的这种怀疑态度对中国领导人来说是一个严峻的挑战。在不到三十年的时间里，这个国家从一个年轻社会变成了正在迈向老龄化的社会。生育连续七年下滑，加速了劳动人口少于退休人口那一天的到来。

The fast-changing demographic profile is putting tremendous strain on China’s existing underfunded pension system. An average retirement age of 54, among the lowest in the world, has made this stress more acute.

快速变化的人口结构给中国现有的这个资金不足的养老金系统构成了巨大的压力。中国的平均退休年龄为54岁，低于世界上大多数地方，进一步增加了压力。

A grinding economic slowdown, the worst since China embraced capitalism four decades ago, is leaving many people out of work or with little room to put money aside.

中国目前面临走向资本主义的四十年来最剧烈的经济放缓，这导致许多人失业，或者没有多少可以用于储蓄的余钱。

China has passed a demographic Rubicon just as many other countries have before it. The problem of underfunded retirement programs is not unique to China, either. But China’s demographic and economic troubles are colliding, shaking confidence in the pension system.

和其它许多国家一样，中国已经渡过了人口的卢比孔河。资金不足的养老金计划并非中国独有的问题。但中国的人口和经济困境的同时到来动摇了人们对这一系统的信心。

China is aging so quickly that over the next quarter-century, 520 million people, or nearly 40 percent of its current population, will be older than 60. And over the next decade the public pension will run out of money, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government research institution.

中国的老龄化速度如此之快，在接下来的四分之一个世纪里，有5.2亿人（目前人口的近40%）年龄将在60岁以上。而根据政府研究机构中国社会科学院的数据，公共养老金将在未来十年里耗尽。

“Because of the aging population, people are skeptical about their future pensions,” said Tao Wang, the chief China economist at UBS. “They worry that in the future the payout would be less.”

“由于人口老化，人们对未来的养老金是存在怀疑的，”瑞银中国首席经济学家汪涛说。“他们担心将来提取的时候会变少。”

China’s leaders could begin to tackle the problem by raising an “alarmingly low” retirement age, Ms. Wang said. They have talked about doing so gradually, but haven’t yet taken action.

中国领导人可以通过提高“低到惊人”的退休年龄来应对这一问题，汪涛说。他们曾表示要逐步这样做，但至今未见行动。

Recent history has also contributed to the problem. Until the 1980s, China had a planned economy, and state-owned enterprises paid salaries to workers until their deaths. As officials took on market-oriented reforms, they also set out to create a more inclusive pension system.

一些晚近的历史原因也加剧了这一问题。中国的计划经济一直实施到了上世纪80年代，国有企业会向工人支付工资直至他们去世。随着开始市场导向的改革的同时，政府还着手创建一个覆盖面更广的养老金系统。

In the first decades after China opened its economy to the world, the Communist Party prioritized growth, forgoing the investment needed to build a broader social safety net. And as officials reformed state-owned enterprises in the 1990s, tens of millions of people lost their jobs.

在向世界敞开经济大门的第一个十年里，中共以发展为重，不再投入资金创建范围更广的社会保障系统。随着90年代国有企业改革的进行，数千万人失去了工作。

Officials began to create a new pension system that would eventually cover most of the population under three pillars. The first is a public and mandatory program that has the largest enrollment, with just over a billion people. It is made up of a basic plan for the jobless in rural and urban areas, as well as migrant workers, covering more than 550 million people, and an employment-based plan that covers 504 million employees.

官员们开始创建一个新的养老金系统，最终要用“三支柱”覆盖绝大部分人口。第一个支柱是强制性的公共计划，参与人数最多，超过了10亿人。其中包括为城乡失业人口以及农民工准备的一个基本计划，覆盖了超过5.5亿人，另有一个基于雇佣的计划，覆盖5.04亿名雇员。

The second pillar of China’s pension system is private and employment-based. It is voluntary for companies and covers far fewer people.

中国养老金系统的第二支柱是基于私资和雇佣关系的。企业可以自行选择是否参与，覆盖的人较少。

The third and most recent, also private and voluntary, is a personal pension. It was introduced in 2022. With the public pension coming under more financial stress, officials started offering tax benefits much like an individual retirement account in the United States.

第三个也是最近的一个支柱也是私资和自愿的，也就是个人养老金。该政策是2022年出台的。随着公共基金面临更多财政压力，官员们开始提供一种类似于美国的个人退休账户的税负减免。

The rollout of private pensions, which are still in pilot programs in dozens of cities, coincided with alarming news: China’s population was beginning to shrink for the first time in its modern history.

个人养老金目前仍在数十个城市试运行，它的推出伴随着一个令人警觉的消息：中国已经开始出现近代历史上的第一次人口萎缩。

Working professionals like Xuan Lü, 27, are required to contribute part of their salary to one of the public pensions. Mr. Xuan, who is an exhibition planner in Beijing, said he didn’t think too much about the roughly 5 percent of his income that is set aside each month.

像27岁的吕轩（音）这样的职场人士必须将薪水中的一部分缴存到其中一种公共养老金中。在北京从事展览规划工作的吕先生说，每个月薪水里会扣去约5%，他没有太放在心上。

“It’s too early to worry about these things,” he said.

“我觉得现在担心这些比较早，”他说。

But over the past year another problem has emerged: More people, whether they are unemployed or doing part-time or freelance work, are pausing their contributions or simply opting out.

但在过去的一年里，另一个问题出现了：越来越多的人，无论是失业者，还是兼职或自由职业者，都在暂停缴纳养老金，或者干脆不缴纳养老金。

“The number of people who have decided tactically not to contribute or join the system is quite large,” said Dali Yang, a professor at the University of Chicago. “It has gone up very substantially.”

“策略性地决定不缴费或不加入这个体系的人相当多，”芝加哥大学教授杨大利说。“这个数字大幅上涨。”

Experts also caution that if China doesn’t change the retirement age, it will need to reduce the benefits, which they say may be too generous in some cases. In 2022, the national average monthly payment for the public employment pension was $500, and just $28 for the basic state pension. But the contributions and benefits varied drastically depending on the city and province.

专家们还警告说，如果中国不改变退休年龄，就需要减少退休福利，他们说，在某些情况下，退休福利可能过于慷慨。2022年，全国公共就业养老金平均每月约3500元，基本国家养老金仅为约200元。但不同省市的缴费和福利差异很大。

There are thousands of different pension plans, and each is managed by a local authority. How much retirees receive is linked to a local government’s finances and the size of a given pool of pensioners. Some pensions have as few as 30,000 participants, according to one study.

有数千种不同的养老金计划，全都由地方当局管理。退休人员领取多少养老金与当地政府的财政状况和特定养老金领取者的规模有关。一项研究显示，有些养老金的参与者只有3万人。

In some prosperous regions, as many as eight workers support each retiree. But in poorer areas, there are about two workers for every retiree.

在一些繁荣地区，多达八名工人供养一个退休人员。但在较贫穷的地区，大约是两个工人供养一个退休人员。

With pressures mounting, worried Chinese officials and experts have taken to nagging young people to save and enroll in the private pension scheme.

随着压力的增加，忧心忡忡的中国官员和专家开始唠叨年轻人要存钱，并参加私人养老金计划。

One well-known professor has urged young people to skip their daily coffee and put the money into a fund. Another has warned young people that the basic pension will not be enough to survive on when they are old.

一位知名教授敦促年轻人放弃每天喝咖啡，把钱投入基金。另一位官员警告年轻人，到他们年老时，基本养老金将不足以维持生活。

For some young people, the urgent calls are backfiring.

对一些年轻人来说，这些紧急呼吁适得其反。

“Their appeal has a reverse effect,” said Lumiere Chen, 27, a private insurance agent in Beijing whose customers are around 35. “We are annoyed by more and more appeals.”

“他呼吁属于现在有一种反向作用，”27岁的北京私人保险代理人卢米埃·陈（音）说，她的客户年龄都在35岁左右。“都已经越呼吁天天都烦。”

Even those a little older are not easy to persuade.

即使是年纪稍大一点的人也不容易被说服。

“To be honest, I don’t expect to be living on my retirement salary and covering my future retirement life with it,” said Leon Li, 37, a driver for Didi, China’s equivalent to Uber. Mr. Li lost his job at a market research firm last year after working there for more than a decade. He had a pension with the company that he will continue to pay into for the next two years to meet the minimum 15-year threshold to qualify for benefits after retirement.

“其实说白了我不指望靠退休工资来过活，负担我将来的养老生活，”37岁的滴滴司机利昂·李（音）说。利昂·李在一家市场研究公司工作了十多年，去年丢了工作。他以前所在的公司给他交了养老金，他打算未来两年继续缴纳，以达到退休后享受福利的最低15年门槛。

By contrast, Cesar Li, 27, hasn’t enrolled in the basic public pension plan because, he said, it is too expensive. Mr. Li, a freelancer, said he had noticed that more older people were claiming pensions and fewer young professionals were paying into the system. He echoed a concern that other young people have expressed — that their retired parents or grandparents sometimes receive twice the salaries of their working family members.

相比之下，27岁的凯撒·李（音）没有参加基本的公共养老金计划，他说，因为太贵了。自由职业者凯撒·李说，他注意到，领取养老金的老年人越来越多，而向养老金体系缴费的年轻职场人士越来越少。他也提出了其他年轻人表达的担忧——他们退休的父母或祖父母的退休金有时是在职家庭成员薪水的两倍。

Cesar Li and his friends sometimes discuss the future, he said, and joke about who will take care of them when they are old. “We may end up alone and die at home,” he added.

凯撒·李说，他和朋友们有时会讨论未来，开玩笑说他们老了以后谁来照顾他们。“大家到时候可能孤独终老死在家里也有可能，”他还说道。

With fewer young people and more old, the gap between workers and retirees will only get bigger.

随着年轻人越来越少，老年人越来越多，工人和退休人员之间的差距只会越来越大。

“This can only be left to fate,” Mr. Li said. “I have no control over it.”

“这个也只能听天由命，”凯撒·李说。“确实因为我也左右不了。”