CCTV9英语新闻11月：中国的双轨养老金制度（在线收听）

For more on China's pension system and the controversy around it, we're joined in the studio by my colleague Zhong Shi.

Dongning: Zhong Shi, why don’t we start with why so many people are calling the pension system unfair and in need of change?

Zhong: Dongning, at the heart of the controversy is what we call the "dual-track system". It’s actually a product of the old planned economy. Take a look at these numbers. Government employees generally do not pay into pensions during their working years. But when they retire, they receive a pension of 70% to 90% of their working wage, depending on how many years they’ve worked. In sharp contrast, private enterprise employees pay 8% of their monthly income toward pensions, but only receive about 50% to 60% of their average wage level when they retire. Now, this is just a rough estimation, but if a civil servant and a company employee both make about 5,000 yuan a month before retirement, and let’s say they’ve both completed the 35 working years, the civil servant gets 4500 yuan a month in pension, but the company employee gets just under 3000 yuan. That explains why people are complaining so much. Dongning?

Dongning: Zhong Shi, despite wide-spread complaints, this two-track system has proved difficult to change. Why is that?

Zhong: You’re right Dongning. The government is not just realizing this problem now but its actions have proved less than successful. In 2008, the State Council chose the provinces of Zhejiang, Shanxi, Yunnan, Guangdong and the municipality of Chongqing for an experiment with public-sector pension reform. But since then, no change has been made in policy. It’s not difficult to imagine the kind of resistance from public sector workers who have long grown used to the benefits from the system and are keen to keep the system in place. And another problem is the reportedly gigantic deficit in China’s pension system. The figures are debatable, from 2 trillion yuan to as much 18 trillion yuan. But the deficit makes it difficult to come up with an alternative to the current two-track system.