James Kynge

My friends in China also are saying, you know, high costs of housing, education, childcare, intense pressures of the workplace, very long working hours, all of that kind of thing.

By 2040,

China will have a huge elderly population of over 400 million people.

That means that from now until then, the number of elderly people, that's people above 60 years old, will rise by about 150 million.

So that is the population of Russia.

between now and 2040.

And simultaneously, the number of Chinese people overall will be falling.

And by 2050, that will also have declined by 150 million.

So again, a population the size of Russia.

So, you know, as you mentioned, we're dealing with really, really big pressures here.

This is big stuff.

Oh, hugely.

I mean, I had female colleagues who were late 20s, 30s, just having kids or just getting married.

And the sense of foreboding was really quite palpable.

People talking about moving into cramped apartments.

They couldn't afford borrowing huge amounts of money to buy those apartments, having to repay the debt on that for decades to come.

And then the grandparents move into the cramped apartment and then the child arrives and it's really stressful.

And then they have to work, you know, nine in the morning till nine in the evening in really high pressure jobs and then put their kids into childcare.

And then the cost of the childcare is so huge.

It really sounded, you know, a stressful situation.