Mr Viral
When Li Rui was earning 30,000 yuan ($4,000) a month from part-time jobs, he burned through most of it on gadgets, takeout, and nights out. Now, as a full-time Ph.D. student in Beijing living on just 5,000 yuan in bursaries and scholarships, he saves more than ever.
“I’m saving more than 60% of my income now,” says the 27-year-old. “Before, it was only about 20%, if that.”
China’s economy is showing signs of recovery: wages are rising, growth is steady, and stimulus is flowing. But for Li, the decision to cut back stems from a lingering sense of uncertainty, an instinct now driving millions to spend less and save more.
The numbers bear it out. China’s per capita saving rate hit 34.3% in 2022 — the highest in a decade. While it has declined slightly since, the rate remains well above pre-pandemic levels. Similar spikes were seen around the world at the time, but in China, the pattern has stuck.
And with the government placing household consumption at the heart of its recovery strategy, that pattern has become harder to ignore. In 2025, boosting domestic demand is a national priority, with leaders pledging more subsidies, tax relief, and policy support to unlock household spending. At high-level economic meetings, top leaders emphasized the need to “vigorously boost consumption” as the centerpiece of recovery.
But while the results so far have been mixed, officials remain hopeful that momentum will build.
Experts say the shift reflects a mix of caution and constraint, driven by a mixture of job market uncertainty, fewer attractive investment options, and long-term anxieties around retirement and healthcare.
Savings tend to fall into two categories, explains Liang Jie, a Ph.D. in economics at Shanghai’s Fudan University: active saving, where people deliberately set aside money in anticipation of future needs, and passive saving, which happens by default when spending or investment opportunities dry up, like reduced travel opportunities or a real estate slump.
“We’ve implemented various policies to stimulate domestic demand and boost the economy, which has helped lower the saving rate somewhat,” Liang underscored. “Confidence in the economic outlook has recovered slightly, but overall, the saving rate is still at a relatively high level. This suggests that people remain uncertain about the economy.”
The caution cuts across regions and demographics. Southern cities with more market-driven economies tend to spend more, while northern and inland areas are more inclined to save. And from students like Li to older wage earners with dependents, the impulse to hold back is widely shared.
Still, with incomes rising and policy support expanding, experts say the conditions are in place for a turnaround — if confidence can catch up.
Safety net
If students like Li are simply tightening their belts, Luo, a 57-year-old public sector manager from Chengdu in southwestern China, has overhauled his finances from the ground up.
Before 2018, he invested more than half of his disposable income in bonds and stocks. Today, only a third goes into conservative assets, though insurance still makes up more than half of his overall portfolio.
With a large family to support — his wife, daughter, parents, and sisters — Luo began selling off stocks in 2019, even while they were still profitable, to prepare for what he called “future uncertainties.”
While his remaining holdings have since tanked, he’s held on, hoping one day to “fill the hole.” Now, he saves half his household income, no matter which way interest rates go.
“Even if they drop all the way to zero, I’ll still put aside half our income,” says Luo, requesting to be identified only by his surname. “I know it’ll lose value, but this is how we manage the unknowns in life. It’s become a habit. Our way of staying steady when things get unpredictable.”
A key indicator of consumer confidence and financial resilience, China’s per capita saving rate stood at 24.5% in 2024 — down from the 2022 peak but still well above the pre-pandemic norm, a sign that elevated caution has become the new baseline.
The spike, says Xu Zhiwei, a professor at Fudan University’s School of Economics, is closely tied to the pandemic, and its aftermath. “Although the pandemic is over, the economy is still recovering, and uncertainty remains high.”
Despite steady income growth — with per capita disposable income reaching 41,314 yuan in 2024, up nearly 17,000 yuan from 2016 — saving has become more of a norm than an exception.
Surveys show that since 2020, the share of people who prefer saving over spending or investing has stayed consistently above 50%. In the final quarter of 2024, that figure climbed to 61.4%, while just 24.9% favored spending more, and only 13.6% prioritized investing.
The divide
Among the 61.4% is Li Yupeng, a 28-year-old from Chengdu who works at a high-end restaurant, where the average bill runs close to 1,000 yuan. In recent months, he’s scaled back on extras, switching from an annual gym membership to pay-per-visit, skipping massages with friends, and cutting back on dining out.
“Many of my friends haven’t seen salary increases, and some have even lost certain benefits,” he says. “That kind of uncertainty makes me more cautious, especially when it comes to discretionary spending.”
Earlier this year, Li’s boss announced there would be no pay raises, a move he took as confirmation that caution was the right approach. He’s now saving to prepare for a potential job change, knowing he might need to cover a gap between paychecks.
“Ideally, I could transition seamlessly,” he says. “But if there’s a gap, or if I get laid off, I’ll need something to fall back on.”
This caution, says economist Liang Jie, along with concerns over retirement and healthcare, is adding to the pressure to save.
“At the core of future economic growth is one key factor: confidence in the macroeconomy,” he explains.
And while confidence may drive the big picture, on the ground, how — and how much — people save still depends heavily on where they live.
Across China, income and saving patterns diverge sharply by region. In northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning, the average disposable income falls below the national average, yet per capita deposits are relatively high. Beijing and Shanghai both rank among the top earners, but Beijing residents save far more on average, with a striking 70,000-yuan gap in per capita deposits.
Part of that split, Liang explains, comes down to mindset and market structure. “Overall, southern China’s economy is stronger, and marketization is more advanced,” he says. “In places like the Northeast or Shandong, people working in public-sector jobs often feel there are fewer options if things go wrong. That creates more anxiety and a stronger push to save.”
By contrast, in cities like Guangdong in the south and Fujian in the east, confidence in the private sector runs higher, and that tends to support both spending and investment. But across much of China, the instinct to hold back persists.
Li, the Ph.D. student in Beijing, says saving has become a way to brace for the future. Hoping to settle in a first-tier city after graduation, he began tracking economic trends during postgraduate study and noticed growing caution among his peers.
“For me, that sense of security is the greatest value of saving,” he said. “It’s the foundation for a more certain future. Without savings, I’d feel like a drifting weed — blown by the wind, washed by the rain, with nowhere to take root.”
Additional reporting: Wu Yufei; contributions: Ding Yining; editor: Apurva.
(Header image: Visuals from Shijue/VCG, reedited by Sixth Tone)
