(Yicai) May 26 -- China has issued its first regulations to safeguard the rights of employees who keep working beyond the statutory retirement age, creating a clearer legal framework for pay, working hours, injury protection, pension contributions, and dispute resolution.

The interim administrative rules, which will come into force on July 1, covers any over-age worker hired by an employer, including those rehired after retiring early. They were jointly issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and other government departments yesterday.

Workers who opt for flexible delayed retirement and still maintain an employment relationship with their employer will continue to fall under the Labor Contract Law and will not be subject to the new rules.

China is gradually raising its statutory retirement ages over a 15-year period that began last year in response to higher life expectancy, more years of schooling, an increase in the elderly population, and a decline in the working-age population. For men, the retirement age will rise to 63 from 60, while for women in blue-collar jobs it will increase to 55 from 50, and for women in managerial or senior technical roles it will rise to 58 from 55.

Under the new rules, employers must pay over-age workers in full and on time at no less than the local minimum wage, enroll them in work injury insurance, and generally refrain from requiring them to do overtime.

Over-age workers who choose to continue making pension contributions beyond the statutory retirement age may do so as individuals or arrange for their employer to make contributions on their behalf through mutual agreement.

The rules also formalize avenues for dispute resolution by explicitly bringing disputes involving over-age workers within the scope of labor dispute mediation and arbitration. The Supreme People’s Court, China’s the highest judicial body, had already introduced a standalone cause of action for employment disputes involving over-age workers last year.

Over-age workers had long fallen outside the protections of the Labor Contract Law simply because they had reached the statutory retirement age, leaving many with limited recourse when wages went unpaid or work injury claims were rejected, said Lin Jia, a professor at Renmin University of China Law School.

The new rules dismantle the longstanding assumption that labor protections depend on the existence of a formal employment relationship, instead grounding protections in the reality of work performed and recognizing the value of over-age workers’ contributions, Lin noted.

The regulations safeguard the lives, physical well-being, and health of over-age workers while avoiding the imposition of unreasonable burdens on employers, said Shen Jianfeng, director of the Labor Law and Social Security Law Research Center at the Central University of Finance and Economics.

Editor: Futura Costaglione