A social security official said on Sunday that China should gradually push back all employees’ retirement age to 65 by 2045.

He Ping, director of the Social Security Research Institute under China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS), announced his proposal during a workshop on coping with the aging population problems held on Sunday, the Beijing Times reported.

He proposed to gradually increase the retirement age from 2016 by adding one year every two years over a period of ten years, the paper said.

Currently in China, the retirement age is 60 for men, 55 for female civil servants and 50 for other female workers.

He said western countries usually encourage their employees to retire at a later age through an external mechanism, the paper said.

Li Jun, an expert with the Institute of Quantitative & Technical Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said an extension of the retirement age can help slow down the reduction of an effective workforce as well as lower the expected raise in labor costs, the paper said.

Cai Fang, director of the CASS Institute of Population and Labor Economics, said that the circumstances for China to extend its retirement age are yet to mature since the country's older generation usually lacks the sufficient educational background to meet the new requirements of their job positions.

Cai said it would be better for the government to adopt a flexible policy in this regard and provide more training opportunities for the elderly as well.

China is the only country with an aging population exceeding 100 million. By 2010, the number of Chinese people over 60 years came to 178 million, accounting for 23.6 percent of the world's total, according to the paper.

It said Li estimated that by 2050, China's working age population (aged 15-59) will be reduced to 710 million, a staggering 230 million less than in 2010. Li said from 2030 onwards, China will face a severe shortage in workforce supply.

Lawyer He Peihua said on his verified Sina Weibo account that the biggest beneficiaries to this policy are obvious. He said if it becomes a new law, officials will make 5-year more off-the-books income besides the regular salaries and youngsters will lose 5 years of promotion opportunities.