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A telephone survey was conducted from 22 to 24 April 2014 by Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong to gauge public views about extending age of retirement.  803 respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 46.6%.  The sampling error is + or –3.46% at a confidence level of 95%. 

Major findings are summarized as follows: 

In the survey, the respondents were asked if they agreed to the government proposal of raising the retirement age of civil servants of civil grade from 60 to 65 depending on the operational need of the units concerned.  More than half (56.0%) of the 802 respondents agreed, 18.0% disagreed and 24.3% answered “in-between”.  Two-fifths (40.5%) of the respondents agreed that 65 is a suitable age of retirement for those working outside the government.  7.0% and 37.5% said that those working outside the government should retire at the ages of 55 and 60 respectively. 

Being asked if they would want to postpone their retirement, 26.6% of the respondents favored and 25.8% did not favor.  Over two-fifths (42.7%) did not show any preference.  Three-fifths believed that it was either very difficult (20.5%) or difficult (39.9%) for them to obtain a suitable job should they extend their retirement age.  26.1% said it was not difficult to do so and 4.4% thought that was easy. 

Concerning the pros and cons of extending the age of retirement, 42.1% of our respondents disagreed that raising retirement age would hinder promotion prospect of the younger generation.  32.5% agreed and 23.7% answered “in-between”.  Half of them (50.2%) disagreed to the statement that “as increasing expenses of enterprises (such as employee insurance and pension) will be resulted from extending the retirement age, raising the age of retirement is detrimental rather than beneficial”, 17.8% agreed and 28.5% answered “in-between”.  47.6% agreed that extension of retirement age would alleviate the problem of shrinking workforce faced by Hong Kong society in the next few years, 22.1% showed disagreement, and 27.6% said “in-between”.  37.5% agreed that raising the age of retirement could reduce elderly welfare expenses of the government.  34.7% disagreed and 24.4% were “in-between”. 

Respondents were also asked about their desired age of retirement.  Half of them (51.4%) preferred retiring at the age of 60 or before, 38.4% wanted to retire between 61 and 65 and 5.0% opted for the age of 66 or above.  The mean of desired retirement age is 61.1.