Chinese Confident About Growing Old – Study
Despite the fact that nearly 40% of China’s elderly suffer from depression, according to a recent report from state-run Xinhua News Agency, most Chinese have upbeat outlooks for their retirement. In fact, they’re more optimistic about their post-work lives than almost everyone else, according to a new study from HSBC. Surveying 17,000 working adults in 17 places, HSBC found that 75% of Chinese believe they’ll be better off than their parents when it comes to retirement. That level of hopefulness puts China second only to India (78%) in the survey, and well ahead of developed countries.
Having watched their economy rise to become the world’s second largest, Chinese citizens are far more optimistic than their U.S. counterparts, where only 22% of citizens believe the quality of their lives in retirement will surpass their parents’, perhaps because they’ve spent the last few years reading headlines about the economic downturn and stubbornly high employment rates. But even sub-prime-battered Americans have a rosier outlook than the French, who finished dead last among those surveyed with a meager 13% expecting to retire in better style than mom and dad. China’s rosy retirement outlook is a stark contrast to an April poll from the Washington, D.C.-based Gallup Organization, which found that 71% of Chinese see themselves as struggling and 17% say they are downright struggling.
One explanation for the pessimism reflected in the Gallup poll might be China’s inflation rate, which stood at 5.3% in April and remains persistently high despite government attempts to dampen it through interest rate increases and curbs on lending. For the elderly, who have fixed incomes, rising food and housing prices have hit hard, with many racing to grocery stores in March to stock up on soap and laundry detergent when they heard prices would rise. Yet the majority of Chinese still feel equipped for the long-term future, according to the HSBC study. Having enough money to live on after a career ends is a big worry for most, but not in China, where 78% of people say they’ve adequately prepared.