Multidimensional Pension Inequalities in Urban China

Rapid aging and urbanization processes have led to a significant increase in the elderly population in urban China. Along with these processes and China’s socioeconomic development, the Chinese state has implemented dramatic reforms of the pension system. As a result, pension has become the key source to affect well-being and social inequality of elder people. But there has been insufficient research on pension inequality in urban China.

Utilizing the nationally representative survey data based on the 2018 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), we investigate multidimensional pension inequalities among urban retirees, in terms of pension coverage, pension schemes, and pension income. We examine how socioeconomic status indicators (e.g., education, urban household registration (hukou)), the state forces and factors (e.g., employment in the state sector, Communist Party membership as the political capital), and the market forces (e.g., the level of marketization) can affect multidimensional pension inequalities.

Our findings demonstrate that these different sets of factors all affect multidimensional pension inequalities among Chinese urban retirees. Specifically, a higher level of education, urban hukou, public sector employment, and Communist Party membership benefit individuals with a greater pension coverage, better schemes, and a higher income. Furthermore, the social-status gradient of pension is more pronounced in higher-tier pension schemes (i.e., the government and institutional pension and the Enterprise Employee Basic Pension) than the urban-rural resident social pension. Finally, provincial-level marketization interacts with individuals’ socioeconomic statuses and state factors to affect pension income. In particular, marketization acts as an equalizing force by increasing pension income among individuals with a disadvantageous status or position in education, household registration, employment organization, and party affiliation. These findings deepen our understanding of well-being and pension inequalities of elderly people and also enrich the research on the broad patterns of social inequalities in urban China.