Chinese Consumers’ High Saving Rate

There is a cute little household wealth survey by Statistics Bureau in 2002, which helps explain the high saving ratio of Chinese consumers.

“[..]子女教育、养老、防病成为居民家庭进行储蓄的主要目的。在调查问卷列示的十余种储蓄目的当中，把子女教育摆在首位的家庭最多，达到36.5%。而实现子女教育消费则周期较长；排在第二位的储蓄目的是养老，选择率为31.5%，我国目前已步入老龄化社会，但由于社会保障制度尚不完善，不少被访者特别是中老年被访者对未来养老问题表示担忧，故以此为首要储蓄目的的家庭也超过了三成；排在养老之后的储蓄目的是防病，选择率为10.1%，在医疗制度改革后，由个人承担的医药费比例明显提高，居民家庭用于治疗和药品方面的支出大幅增长，因此以防病作为首要储蓄目的的城市家庭逐渐增多。除子女教育、养老及防病外，选择率靠前的储蓄目的还有买住房（7.2%）、子女婚嫁（5.7%）和防失业（3.0%）。”

I have an earlier attempt to tackle here.

If you look at the household financial assets of Japan, another Asian high-saving rate country, the household balance sheet looks almost the same, though of different magnitude and for different reasons.

The United States is a completely different case. Take a mortgage, take a dozen of credit card, and cross over what’s on the shopping list or not, then pay down overtime, or never.

It is not a contemporary phenomenon driven by sophisticated financial engineering, but started a century ago.

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