Saturday, January 24, 2015

Well... this sounds familiar...

Strategypage talks about a coming pension crisis.

You might wonder why such a topic warrants the attention of a site dedicated to military foreign  policy...

Time is not on China’s side. There are numerous examples of this. One of the more obvious is the shrinking Chinese work force. While overall population increased 7.1 million in 2014 (to 1.37 billion) but the working age population declined 3.7 million (to 915 million). The number of Chinese over 60 increased 10 million to 212 million. All this began in 2014 and will continue for decades. The biggest problem, though, is the growing shortage of workers. As the population ages, all those one child families means there will be more elderly than the economy (and the shrinking workforce) can effectively support. Currently there are 11 working age Chinese for every retiree. By 2050, there will only be two for each retiree. At that point, retirees will comprise 30 percent of the population (versus 13 percent now.) 

Oh.   Well...  ironic that.

Amusement at a communist police state facing a crisis you'd expect in Illinois (Or to be honest the US as a whole.  As a nation the USA is basically a pension system with an army).

But this is a serious case... given things could go squirrely with China.  Especially if you add in their looming gender imbalance.

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