Understanding public attitudes towards progressive delayed retirement policy in China
Evidence from social media topic modelling and sentiment analysis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19480331 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Renxing Chen (0000-0002-7634-5908, Shandong University), Ruzhe Geng (Shandong University), Yuxiang Duan (0000-0003-4319-7627, Shandong University), Wenjuan Wang (0000-0001-9180-2823, University of Jinan, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-20 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Asian Public Policy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1751-6242 • E-ISSN: 1751-6234 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17516234.2026.2671818 |
| OpenAlex | W7160961342 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 67 |
With China’s rapidly ageing population, the recently introduced progressive delayed retirement policy has attracted significant public attention and generated widespread debate. This study investigates public responses during the early implementation phase of the reform. Based on 10,788 Sina Weibo posts collected between September 2024 and March 2025, sentiment analysis and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling were employed to trace the dynamics of online discourse. The analysis revealed six major themes: policy suggestions, policy details, policy impacts, policy implementation, policy interpretation, and policy announcement. Prominent concerns focused on employment competition, retirement-age thresholds, and pension contribution and distribution arrangements. Sentiment analysis indicated a notable shift in public emotions – from initial anxiety and scepticism to gradual acceptance – as policy communication and interpretation became more comprehensive. Overall, the findings show that changes in issue salience and emotional attitudes serve as early indicators of public feedback, influencing perceptions of policy legitimacy and underscoring the need for more flexible retirement options, complementary measures, and improved policy communication
Public opinion · Public policy · Sentiment analysis · Social media · Computational and Text Analysis Methods · Mental Health via Writing · Sentiment Analysis and Opinion Mining
Building dialogic relationships through the world wide web
News sharing in social media
Dismantling the Welfare State?
Mining and evolutionary trends of STEAM research topics based on the dynamic topic model
Public acceptability of public health policy to improve population health
Who wants to be involved in health care decisions? Comparing preferences for individual and collective involvement in England and Sweden
Attitudes of smokers towards tobacco control policies
Public opinion of drug treatment policy
Policy Feedback Effects on Mass Publics
Internalised Ageism and Self-Exclusion
How does social pension enrolment impact residents’ trust in local government? A comparison between urban and rural China
How does social insurance policy affect citizens' political participation? An empirical research based on policy feedback theory
Understanding public support for recycling policy
Attitudinal Feedback towards Sub-national Social Policy
The Rise of Twitter in the Political Campaign
The Order of Questions in a Survey on Citizen Satisfaction With Public Services
Social Position, Work Stress, and Retirement Intentions
When Effect Becomes Cause
Using Data from Reddit, Public Deliberation, and Surveys to Measure Public Opinion about Autonomous Vehicles
We Need to Compare, but How? Measurement Equivalence in Comparative Public Administration
The Pathways of Policy Feedback
Policy design and policy feedback in welfare retrenchment
The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship
The evolution of public policy attitudes
When Policies Undo Themselves
Social news, citizen journalism and democracy
A Public Transformed? Welfare Reform as Policy Feedback
The impact of policy legacies on the implementation of Citizen Income in Italy
The Politics of Policy
Challenging 'Getting Better' Social Media Narratives With Intersectional Transgender Lived Experiences
Positive or Negative Policy Feedbacks? Explaining Popular Attitudes Towards Pragmatic Pension Policy Reforms
Universalising Childcare, Changing Mothers' Attitudes
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |