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Aging Opportunity
Article

Aging Opportunity

Can Western financial giants fix China's pension system?



Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Overview
  • Hot Topic

Recommendation

When Chinese officials implemented the nation’s one-child policy in 1979, they failed to plan for the fiscal tornado it would unleash on the long-term health of the nation’s pension system. A destructive aspect is the “1-2-4 conundrum”: One worker having to financially support two parents and four grandparents. Journalist Sean Williams explores the Chinese pension architecture, its social ramifications, and the history, current state and future trajectory of Western financial involvement. Investors, business executives and financial professionals will find this an insightful analysis.

Take-Aways

  • The Chinese pension system’s finances are precarious, as the number of retirees vastly outpaces the number of workers. 
  • Western financial firms seek to exploit an initiative to add private retirement savings accounts to the existing state pension model. 
  • Chinese officials must stabilize the pension system amid an increasingly dispirited population. 

About the Author

Reporter and photographer Sean Williams’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, GQ, The Daily Beast, The New Republic, Wired and The Economist.