A slowing economy, shrinking government benefits and a decades-long one-child policy have created a creeping demographic crisis in Xi Jinping’s China.

The pension pot is running dry and the country is running out of time to build enough of a fund to care for the growing number of elderly.

Over the next decade, about 300 million people, who are currently aged 50 to 60, are set to leave the Chinese workforce. This is the country’s largest age group, nearly equivalent to the size of the US population.

Who will look after them? The answer depends on where you go and who you ask.

  • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    as he’s fallen through a weak social safety net.

    Interesting. I always thought China as a communist country had a strong safety net.

      • Neuromancer@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Ouch. That’s brutal but true.

        I have to say I learned something today. Communism has less of a social net than America

        • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          ML is not “communism”. But even ML have a bit of a spectrum. The problem with ML, and hence why there tends to be similarities with the US. Is that they are authoritarian first. Anything else at their convenience.

          On the anarcho communist side. There wouldn’t be large sweeping systems of safety nets. Though most communities would take care of their own. And support others to do so. The libertarian Marxist or libertarian socialists would be okay with A small basic system because it’s necessary for maximizing freedom. Housing, food and healthcare etc. The mistake is considering countries like the former USSR, North Korea or China as being actually communist. Even if they start out with good intentions. Power corrupts and absolute centralized power corrupts absolutely.