Again, an important example is China, where the absence of a welfare state and the collapse of reliance on younger family members (as a result of the one-child family, where there is one grandchild for every four grandparents), has led in the past to very high personal savings rates. But in the West there has been relatively little sign, yet, of personal savings rising to meet the need to smooth lifetime consumption rates, even though the difference between life expectancy and retirement age has risen dramatically. Perhaps this is due to an expectation that the state will provide, or perhaps
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