I’m curious as to what the norm is at other schools. I understand that your employer is required to provide ‘lao bao’ under the law. Our school provides ‘jain bao’, health insurance, but not ‘lao bao’, labor insurance. Do most other teachers here get ‘lao bao’? If so, how much do you contribute each month? What are the benefits of ‘lao bao’ exactly?
The labour insurance is certainly worth having if you’re going to be staying here for the long term. It used to be important for covering medical treatment in the old days, but once the health insurance was introduced, it slipped off the radar of my awareness, and I stopped paying it without a second thought when I gave up formal employment to become a freelancer two or three years ago. However, my wife recently asked how long I’d paid it in the past, and when she found that I’d done so for well over a decade, she checked with the Labor Insurance Bureau, got confirmation that I’d be eligible for a retirement payment after 20 years (the same as locals), made sure they had the full record of my past payments, and arranged for me to continue making monthly payments.
I’m not quite sure about the figures, but it seems that I’ll be entitled to receive something like a couple of million dollars after 20 years’ work in return for a monthly payment of around a thousand dollars, which seems like a pretty good deal to me.