Abstract: Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, China has repeatedly proposed the policy of “raising the retirement age in progressive steps”. However, to this day, a nationwide policy has not yet been introduced. Therefore, the article takes the theory of social construction and policy design as the theoretical basis and analytical framework, and employs 54 documents (1951—2021) issued by China’s central government as samples to examine how the social construction of the target group affects the process of delaying retirement age policies through feedback effects. Research has found that cadres and senior professional and technical personnel are positively constructed and benefit from policies, resulting in positive feedback. Policies are only applicable to this group for a long time, while ordinary workers are positively constructed but suffer from policy damage, resulting in negative feedback and the inability to introduce national policies, thus leading to policy stagnation; the long-term accumulation of positive feedback effects promotes a shift in social construction, and social environmental factors change policy cognition, thereby driving policy progress. Therefore, policy makers should be determined to continuously optimize policy design and respond to the social construction shift of target groups; the Party and the central government should actively respond to the strategy of aging of population by incorporating the policy of delaying retirement age and shaping public policy awareness; local governments should actively carry out policy experiments and summarize experiences and lessons learned. These measures all contribute to accelerating the policy process.

Key words: aging of population, delay the retirement age, social construction, feedback effect, target group, policy process