Young people ‘have no life’: The Economist’s talk is going well in China

While China’s population growth may reverse the economy in the long run, the elderly are known for their good health and resilience, according to Gao Shanwen, an economist at SDIC Securities, who has advised the country’s executives and senior officials.

“The population of the province is small, the consumption rate is decreasing,” Gao said. he said for investors meeting in Shenzhen on Tuesday, citing its analysis of regional data. In a public speech broadcast on multiple platforms, he described post-epidemic China as “full of vigorous old people, lifeless youth and desperate middle-aged people.”

The intolerable remarks have attracted attention on Chinese social media including Weibo, where videos and transcripts of Gao’s speech have been circulating. The outspokenness was unusual at a time when local experts were trying to control their language or even evaluate other words like “deflation,” as officials sought to make good economic news.

Less than four years ago, a spokesman for the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily praised young people for spending money. to say they were “becoming a large group of consumers of popular goods.”

Sales have been sluggish since the outbreak of Covid-19 intensified in 2022, when consumer confidence was hit by the pandemic and China’s worst economic crisis in recent history. As the economy slowed, wage cuts and layoffs also affected household incomes and reduced spending.

Although the government’s recent campaign to subsidize the purchase of cars and household appliances resulted in a to return in practice, the size is still below pre-epidemic levels.

Before the outbreak, there was no significant correlation between the growth of regional consumption and population, according to Gao. Changes in recent years show that pensions for retirees have remained stable, while young people’s job prospects have fallen, he said.

“For young people, their confidence in their future income has dropped significantly, their spending habits have been restricted, and their willingness to buy a home has also been restricted,” he said. But all these problems are not found in the elderly.

Youth unemployment remained high at 17.1% in October, more than three times the urban unemployment rate.

There may be as many as 47 million people who have not been able to find work in cities in the past three years even though the unemployment rate has stabilized, Gao said, explaining what is happening in pre-diseases in urban areas. . That equates to 10% of China’s urban workforce last year, according to Bloomberg calculations using official figures.

These people may have returned to rural towns or worked in sports, meaning they were not counted in the official statistics, he said. Other independent analysis they also report a smaller labor market than is reflected in official documents.

In a more bold statement, Gao said China’s gross domestic product could be estimated to have increased by more than 10 percent in the past three years, based on his analysis of the gap between economic growth and growth in areas such as consumption, investment and income. employees.

Many economists have said so he asked accuracy of official data on GDP growth in 2022 and 2023.