Here's some trivia, which may or may not be trivial.  Countries with high savings rates also have a high gender imbalance, i.e. more boys than girls.  China has 30 million more boys than girls.  Boys are in heavy duty competition for girls to marry.  And if they are more wealthy, they are more likely to get the girl, apparently.

“Families with sons compete with each other to raise their savings rate in response to ever-rising pressure in the marriage market. Competitive saving by these families spills over to greater savings by other families, possibly through raising the prices of nontradable goods such as housing.”

“Across Chinese provinces, there is clear evidence that local savings rates tend to be higher in regions with more unbalanced sex ratios.”

China's savings rate is 30%... double the highest savings rate ever in U.S. history.  Other countries with high savings rates have gender imbalance among the population too.

The authors note that while they looked only at China, “other economies known to have a strong sex ratio imbalance include Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and India. These countries also happen to have high savings rates.”

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written by China Watcher , June 23, 2009

Leaving aside the issue of abortion -- the key to radically unbalanced gender ratios -- let's not lose sight of the fact that total household savings in China actually are smaller than total corporate "savings." That is, the state owned enterprises are allowed (and encouraged) to amass huge quantities of cash for use in future investments and the reward of executives. Meanwhile, the blue collar workers eke out a living on absurdly low wages. China would be a happier place if household savings were higher and corporate savings lower.

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