A CHINESE ECONOMIC and reform expert, while talking about rebooting the economy in Northeast China, said it was a waste of labor and resources for female employees to retire at 50. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Tuesday:

The public focused its attention on the comment about women retiring too early and ignored his main topic, the regeneration of the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning.

But even then, the core message of the economist was women are retiring too early, not what should be the official retirement age.

The reality is some employers persuade female employees to retire early. Some female employees in their prime, who were capable and responsible workers, have been removed from their positions because of the employment tradition. Even though not reasonable, these women had no option but to retire despite some work units continuously complaining about a lack of workers.

Therefore, do not misinterpret the economist's words. Clearly there is a need of employers for workers and the desire of female employees to work on, but because of unreasonable system design, both have to follow the routine practice of early retirement.

Faced with this outdated system, not having the courage to change is at least pitiful.