When economists were worried about "savings gluts", to decrease savings demand they advocated for things like government funded pensions.
If you read some of the literature out on China and their anomalous savings rate (household consumption is only 40% of national income) studies show that the lack of a social safety net exacerbates the problem and savings rates decline once you have the safety net.
One difference they noticed was the dramatic decline in savings rates as you go from rural to urban areas. In urban areas you have a different social safety net -- a government pension, but in rural areas the pension is optional and savings rates are dramatically higher. Because much social spending in China is handled at the provincial or city level and there are differences, it is a natural laboratory for these types of studies. It's also why you need a citizenship document when trying to "emigrate" into a city or different province, and there are internal controls that limit what city you can be registered in, which also affects things like car registration, real estate purchases, and access to local education in the city for people that are considered "migrants" - e.g. they physically live in the city but do not have enough points to be registered there.
If you read some of the literature out on China and their anomalous savings rate (household consumption is only 40% of national income) studies show that the lack of a social safety net exacerbates the problem and savings rates decline once you have the safety net.
One difference they noticed was the dramatic decline in savings rates as you go from rural to urban areas. In urban areas you have a different social safety net -- a government pension, but in rural areas the pension is optional and savings rates are dramatically higher. Because much social spending in China is handled at the provincial or city level and there are differences, it is a natural laboratory for these types of studies. It's also why you need a citizenship document when trying to "emigrate" into a city or different province, and there are internal controls that limit what city you can be registered in, which also affects things like car registration, real estate purchases, and access to local education in the city for people that are considered "migrants" - e.g. they physically live in the city but do not have enough points to be registered there.