Impact Of Population Age Structure, Pension Insurance And Uncertainty On Household Savings Rate

Savings are one of the important factors of economic growth, impacting economic growth rate in the short-term and stabilization in the long-term. A country’s development must be accompanied by an increase in the savings rate, but insufficient domestic demand caused by excess savings will become an obstacle to economic development. Now China’s savings rate compared with other countries in the world is at a higher level, which restricts the development of our economy, and therefore our government takes an active policy to stimulate consumption in order to expand domestic demand, which makes savings get better use and promote economic healthy and sustainable development. Factors affecting savings rate become the focus of academic research. China’s high savings rate has to do with China’s national culture and national conditions. The main reasons are followed. Firstly, the traditional concept of the Asian countries leads to more conservative spending habits, which promotes higher savings rate. Secondly, population age structure has an impact on savings rate. Thirdly, pension system is imperfect, which promotes more people to save for expenditure in old age. Lastly, because of financial institutions, health care, education and other reforms, resident can not accurately anticipate future income and expenses, which results in uncertainty, and affects the savings rate.In this article, firstly, author defines the concept and reviews the savings theory; secondly, author analyzes the development trends of China’s savings rate, changes in population age structure, the process of pension system and the current situation of uncertainty, and sums up the reasons of China’s high savings rate; Moreover, analyzes theoretically impact that the population age structure and the pension system to household savings rate using an iterative model, and illustrates the uncertainty how affects household savings rate using mathematical formulas; finally, selects the appropriate indicators, analyzes actual impact that the population age structure and the pension system and uncertainty to household savings rate using dynamic panel model GMM estimation, and carry on a comparative study to the areas of high and low market index.According to the theoretical model can get the following conclusions:Firstly, the savings rate is inversely proportional to children’s dependency ratio. The savings rate is direct proportional to elderly dependency ratio when heritage is more, but is inversely proportional when heritage is less. Secondly, pay-as-you-go pension system has a crowding-out effect on household savings rate. Fund pension insurance has no impact on the household savings rate. In the mode of commission account pension system, social pooling accounts can reduce household savings rate and personal accounts has no effect on household savings rate. Finally, when the savings rate increasing, uncertainty increases firstly and then reduces.According to the empirical analysis, author gets the following conclusion. Firstly, household savings rate has a strong inertia, which is currently one of the important reasons of leading China’s high savings rate. Secondly, population age structure has a significant positive impact on the household savings rate, but the results vary with the level of market index, which is different from theoretical conclusion. Moreover, pension insurance has a significant positive impact on the household savings rate, but coefficients are different between the sub-samples which has a great relationship with imperfect pension system. Finally, income uncertainty has a significant negative impact on the household savings rate, which is related to the ability of residents bearing risks.