The average household in China has four times more savings than the average household in the UK, new research shows.
7:00AM GMT 03 Feb 2012
According to Lloyds TSB, the typical British household has £5,000 in savings and investments. This compares to over £19,000 in China.
German households, meanwhile, have average savings of almost £9,000.
The bank said that the “remarkable” findings reflect the fact that there is no “social safety net” in China, such as state pensions and benefits, meaning that families must provide for themselves financially.
Lloyds TSB also said that the so-called savings ratio in the UK – that is a person’s savings as a proportion of their disposable income – has been falling over the last decade.
Currently, Britons save around 7 per cent of their disposable income. This compares with 47 per cent in China.
Greg Coughlan, head of savings at Lloyds TSB, said: “Despite significantly higher income levels, today’s British and German households are both being roundly beaten in the savings stakes by urban Chinese households.”
Dr Karl Gerth, author of As China Goes, So Goes the World: How Chinese Consumers are Transforming Everything and a lecturer in modern Chinese history at Merton College, Oxford, said that Chinese people save out of necessity because they have to pay for healthcare, education, housing and their retirement.
“It has nothing to do with ancient Confucian wisdom and all to do with contemporary realities,” said Dr Gerth.
He said that savings levels among young Chinese people are far lower than among their parents’ generation.
“In China, young people are learning to spend,” he said.
Lloyds TSB’s findings were based on over 3,000 interviews with adults in the UK, China and German.