Re-employment of the Young-Old People in China: Reflection on the Legal Protection

Abstract

In the context of population ageing, young-old people aged 60-69 are considered the main force in the re-employment strategy in China. However, dilemmas exist in the reality. After a summary of previous researches, it is clear that young-old people have less job opportunities and get less salary compared with their younger competitors. Moreover, there is no work-related safeguard for these workers. To further explore the issue, this article focuses on the current legal system and theories in the academic field as to the recognition of labor relationship and prohibition of age discrimination. It turns out that, retirement as an obligation has blocked recognizing labor relations in a natural and reasonable manner by disregarding the parties' autonomy and the natural characteristics of labor relationship; On the issue of age discrimination, the meaning and role of age discrimination in the current legal system are still not clear. Combined with experience learned from Japan, suggestions can be further given: Retirement should no longer be ruled as an obligation as it is not in line with the reality; On this basis, the recognition of labor relationship should be reset with a purpose of respecting parties' autonomy and following natural characteristics of labour relations; All the young-old workers should be equipped with work-related injury insurance as inclined protection of elderly people. Furthermore, the importance of regulations on age discrimination in line with other measures is usually underestimated. In order to achieve substantive equality in the workplace, the author holds that the judgement standard of age discrimination should be clarified as soon as possible and an age discrimination review system and a punishment mechanism should be established.