Nearly 70 percent of Chinese people were opposed to a proposal to raise the retirement age, as the country looks to improve its pension system, according to a survey on Friday.

The survey, conducted by people.com.cn, the online news portal run by the People's Daily, and two Beijing-based consulting firms, reported that among the 1,062 people surveyed in 11 cities across China, 68.6 percent are against the proposal to raise the retirement age to 65 years.

Over 78 percent of the interviewees who gave negative votes are employees of foreign-funded companies, and felt it was not suitable for China's situation. Nearly 53 percent of interviewees who work in Party and government organs also voted negatively.

In addition, 73.5 percent support flexible retirement, which would respect workers' plans for early or late retirement, while 9.3 percent strongly opposed such a policy.

China has been considering raising the retirement age since 2008 to cope with its shrinking workforce and aging society, people.com.cn reported on Friday.

The top three measures that the respondents thought should be implemented in reforming the pension system were adopting a flexible retirement mechanism instead of a one-size-fits-all policy, setting up a multi-pronged system and narrowing the gap in pensions that different groups of employees should receive.

Experts pointed out that the heavy workload, long working hours and lack of labor rights protection were the reasons people voted against raising the retirement age, the news portal reported.

The survey also covered the debates on the discrepancy between the public sector and private sector's pension systems. Fifty-nine percent of the interviewees called for the end of such a system in a bid to stress pension equality.