In Depth: China Offers More Choice to Boost Contributions to Its Pension System Fix

With the expansion of its personal pension program in December, China is trying to encourage savers to increase their thus-far paltry contributions and put more of their money into investments that better match their tolerance for risk.

Policymakers have been pushing personal pension accounts as a way to shore up China’s state-run basic pension funds. The major part of those funds, which is contributed by urban employees, is expected to run dry in the middle of the next decade — one of the consequences of the country’s rapidly aging population, which has left a smaller workforce to support a growing number of pensioners.