中国养老金:制度变革、问题清单与高质量发展

中国养老金制度经过近30多年来的深刻变革,从自我封闭的单位保障制走向开放式的社会保险制、从少数人的专利发展成为全体老年人的共同福祉、从单一责任主体走向多方分担责任、从单一层次走向多层次化,成为惠及所有老年人的社会保障制度,符合全球养老金制度发展的潮流与客观规律。但目前存在的理论认识误区、制度不统一、政策参数僵化、补充层次缺失及其导致的筹资失衡、待遇不公、预期紊乱、可持续性弱化和社会风险累积等问题正在日益显性化。这表明其仍是质量不高的制度安排。因此,中国养老金制度亟待走出逻辑混乱的思维定势与传统的路径依赖,通过明确公平建制理念、加快制度统一步伐、调适筹资责任分担机制、赋予相关参数弹性空间、理性推动多层次化等举措来为参与主体各方提供清晰稳定的预期,实现制度定型和高质量发展。

Pension in China:Reform,Problem List and High-quality Development

After over 30 years of overhauls,China’s pension system has been transformed from an institutional setting based on and segmented by work units(danwei) to one based on independent social insurance,from the privilege of a small group of people to a universal benefit for all elderly,from responsibilities resting solely with one party to those involving multiple stakeholders,and from singleto multi-layered structures.These reforms are in line with global trends and principles of pension systems.Yet,existing problems,including theoretical misunderstandings,a segmented system,rigid design parameters,the absence of a supplemental layer as well as the resulting contribution imbalance,unfair benefits,unstable expectations,weakening sustainability and social risk accumulation,are becoming increasingly noticeable.These problems demonstrate the continued low quality of the current pension system.Thus,China’s pension system urgently needs to eliminate logical confusion and its traditional path dependence.In addition,it needs to provide clear and stable expectations for all stakeholders while also achieving maturity and high-quality development through measures such as clarifying the idea of establishing a fair system,accelerating integration of schemes,improving the mechanism for sharing contribution responsibility,giving design parameters more flexibility,and promoting a well-organized multilayered pension system.