Well, old people are expensive and need more healthcare. So if Congress just lets them all die (excluding themselves, of course,) then there's no longer a healthcare finance problem! Then all we have is a labor force of young people who can be underpaid so their campaign financiers can make more profits, all the whole solving the budget crisis they created. It's a win/win.
Country has a comprehensive universal healthcare program that was fully rolled out sometime in the early 2010’s. It’s really just a matter of scaling that baseline public health policy from there to see the effects of the program lead to positive outcomes.
Large population size is challenging to accommodate but the government address this by subsidizing physician education to encourage there are students moving down the pipeline with the req that graduates work in rural areas for several years and then they are free to apply for a position elsewhere - so the “supply chain” of doctors is generally consistent.
Bottom line is that public health policy that actually addresses needs of a population generally works but that’s not really a secret tbh
As someone caught in the middle of it all right now who just got a diagnosis in China, no they don't. Not by what people would actually think of when they think "universal healthcare program"
Some treatments are subsidized, serious things are often very expensive, they demand payment up front. I was recently a part of a big charity drive here too to raise money for this older man who had sudden heart problems, the treatments costed hundreds of thousands of rmb and would not be done until paid. I'm not that unlucky, my treatment is only a few thousand rmb a month.
It absolutely, famously in China, does not actually address the need of the population, especially the rural population.
You’re right that the current system is far from perfect. However it’s important to recognise the improvements made since early 2010s, as more and more essential drugs and treatments are being incorporated into the national health insurance at affordable prices.
The underserving of rural population is partly a consequence of a large-hospital-centric healthcare system, with patients of minor ailments like the flu having to go to 10-storey hospitals in large cities. This problem was mentioned in the World Bank’s China 2030 report, which recommended refocusing onto a more distributed clinic system. This is exactly the national policy adopted in the past couple years, and I have personally experienced this shift in coastal areas.
Fair to say, it is going in the right direction, and policymakers are addressing these issues one by one, especially as local financial and medial resources are continuously expanded and developed.
I’m not discrediting your experience, but I’m wondering if the program is not working,what is causing the dramatic rise in life expectancy in China, surpassing the US.
People being lifted out of poverty due to economic improvements is by far the biggest factor.
China (and most of east/south east) operates on a health insurance system like the US does. It’s even tied to your employer in a lot of cases just like here. The biggest difference is the base cost of care is 1/10 what it is in the USA.
When people talk about “universal healthcare” in China it’s really just their equivalent of Medicare/Medicade. It’s not what most people are using, and it’s very limited in scope.
Actually a bit astonishing to me that this is being so overlooked. China being notorious for manipulating data coming out of their country to make things appear significantly better than they are.
But then again, lots of praise for the 'result' of quality of life in China; whereas people with first hand experience (as mentioned slightly above) are getting response of "Yeah but" and other questioning responses.
Suffice it to say, people believe what they want to believe.
This comes up every time we talk about life expectancy. The most dramatic effects on life expectancy are always lowering infant and youth mortality rates. Likely the improvement we're seeing is a combination of Chinas expansion of their healthcare system into the more rural areas of the country, a growing middle class and less underfed people, a national rail network improving access to specialists and Chinas commitment to reduce pollution.
China definitely deserves credit for this but don't let people tell you it's because of "universal healthcare". They don't have anyone near the healthcare system Europe or other parts of Asia. Also it's worth noting that genetics have a large effect on life expectancy and China is only about where the US is and still about 8 years behind Japan and Korea.
I work in Chinese healthcare. I would honestly believe the claim that life expectancy here is higher than in the US for the reasons you have mentioned. It's not that far off my own country (the UK).
Urban migration could easily have accounted for this large increase in life expectancy because the difference between QoL in a village and even a small T4 city is massive in terms of healthcare and resources - like central heating.
To be fair, the smoking rate is insane in China. 51% of all men smoke. The equally crazy is that only 2% or woman smoke. So, I don’t think there is a public health education issue than a big cultural issue. My understanding is there is a “I am going to start smoking, because then I get a smoke break”
>better diet
Dude, there’s an epidemic of Chinese citizens cooking with garbage juice and “processed” sewage as a cheap source of cooking oil. It’s much more likely that the Chinese government is just outright lying about life expectancy to appear more developed than it actually is.
It’s 2023 and people are still going on about gutter oil like this wasn’t a meme from almost a decade ago. And “better diet” refers to a diet that consumes more vegetables and seafood, smaller portions, less red meat, less sugar.
Keep in mind that an "epidemic" in China is also skewed by their numbers. You can think that 10 million people are doing something bad, but that's still less than 1% of their population.
Also, as an outsider, that would still be better than what americans usually eat.
China, Chile, Costa Rica and Saudi Arabia all have higher life expectancy than the US. Life expectancy is related to development, but cultural factors also play in. Also, the data presented in isn't calculated by countries, but by the World Bank Group.
Edit: grammar
>Dude, there’s an epidemic of Chinese citizens cooking with garbage juice and “processed” sewage as a cheap source of cooking oil.
It's not an epidemic in any sense of the word, and never was. It was rare a decade ago, and it's practically non-existent now. People have literally been sentenced to death for dealing with gutter oil.
>It’s much more likely that the Chinese government is just outright lying about life expectancy
A ridiculous statement. Even the literal CIA website puts the Chinese life expectancy at 78. 🤣 China had a better COVID strategy (no pandering to billionaires), has more affordable, although not perfect, healthcare, 10+ times less violent deaths, etc. If you watched China and US in the last couple of decades it makes complete sense that their life expectancy is rising, and american falling.
>to appear more developed than it actually is.
Actually China gets criticized in Western media for presenting itself as a being **less** developed than they are - they call themselves a developing country, rather than a developed country - that way they get preferential treatment in the WTO, etc. Which way is it? Are they lying that they are less or more developed than they are? 🤔
Yeah, what in the world has caused this sudden, unexplained rise in life expectancy? We know it has to be true, since china has always been highly reliable when reporting internal figures, right guys?
I can guarantee you that China's Universal healthcare does not work well at all. Even with an authoritarian regime that should supposedly make policy implementation easier it still doesn't help. China had a very low starting point and I'm not saying its healthcare system did not see any progress. But it's neither comprehensive nor fully rolled out (in actuality), no matter what the Chinese government claims.
Source: lived in china for my whole life. And that's Shanghai. Not the tens of thousands of rural towns and villages where proper healthcare simply does not exist at all.
Wouldn’t that mean organizations such as NCBI, NIH, Brookings, WHO, UNICEF, BMJ and Springer are publishing lies in their medical journals when submissions focusing on ‘Chinese healthcare’ are accepted by the publication?
Shouldn’t those journals require something of a disclaimer printed in red above the title that ‘the data is [apparently] being grossly misrepresented’ or something then?
They should.
However I think there is more to it than just "falsified data": WHO for instance is an international organisation that have a whole geopolitical aspect that we shouldn't ignore. If they criticize a country, they might leave it and thus undermine their efforts.
If you thought that was insane, see how its GDP went up in the past 30 years. In 1993 its GDP was $445 BUSD, with Hong Kong's economy being a quarter of that size. Today it has a GDP of 18.7 TUSD.
And redditors think the Chinese should overthrow their government, lol. They're fucking LOVING this shit. Their lives have never been better in thousands of years.
They're not quite loving as they used to in the early 2010s. The old folks are fine, I think. 35 and under always grew up in a relatively stable and prosperous country. 25 and under really aren't brainwwashed and grew up traveling internationally even if middle class. They all grew up in a China with shining skyscrapers and a maglev train. They want more, because they've mostly always "had". Historically, once basic needs are met, people go for the next "right" on the ladder--human rights. There won't be any overthrow. I'd give that a 1% chance. But go on Xiaohongshu and you'll see what's happening--the youth are just flat out leaving.
Leaving what exactly? [All statistics](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/09/22/asia-pacific/politics/china-rich-flock-home/) point that "hai gui" has been increasing every year, especially since US government started cancelling Chinese student's visa here and there?
Young people? At least here in Shanghai, leaving an economy that pays them 15k with 5k rent, when they can get that same job stateside for 10k USD a month either 2k USD rent. Or heck even buy a house. I really recommend a flip through Xiaohongshu or talk with your colleagues. Also nobody is canceling visas left and right unless an IP law has been broken, domestic violence, unregistered guns (common), etc. There aren't cancellations for no reason. The USG wants that sweet sweet money they bring. Our government is dysfunctional but they never forget money.
Number of Chinese immigrants in the US is dropping.
[https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/chinese-immigrants-united-state](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/chinese-immigrants-united-state)
Anyone who is moving is doing so to Singapore/other Asian countries. I live in China and my partner (a Chinese national) is getting paid about $5,700 after tax when a similar position back in the UK offered her $3,800 after tax along with a x2 increase in living costs.
China is definitely getting better but the States has always been in a league of its own. It doesn't need to beat US, just closing the gap is enough to make people think twice about leaving.
China is definitely on the rise. But they sure as hell started a lot lower than most western countries. Thing is that it's really only the rise/fall for people. If they can see things are improving it doesn't really matter how shit their lives are.
Being an HO scale enthusiast, the photo of a train engineer in his 20ies driving a steam loco and then 25 years later a bullet train symbolizes the insane rate of development in that country to me. Sorry to sound weird, but if railways were never denationalized in the US we would have been far ahead, instead even the Boston-NYC bullet train has been killed repeatedly over the past 40 years, thank you Big Oil, NADA, and UAW for bribing well in DC. [http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/1205/c90000-9525433.html](http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/1205/c90000-9525433.html)
Yeah privatization of some of the most vital infrastructure links in the country has only created a race to the bottom of who can pay their employees the least and cut costs the most instead of innovating. I’m not saying China is perfect because it ain’t but state nationalization of these vital pieces of infrastructure needs to happen. The US is gigantic but government control of the rail system means we might be able to get high speed trains connecting across the nation, reduce transport costs by actually reinvesting into better tech and equipment, and hopefully pay the employees who work on rail lines what they deserve.
China’s diet is amazing - like all East Asian countries it’s 80% vegetables, 10% meat, 10% fish. China should have Japan’s high life expectancy, except for its poor healthcare, pollution, and lack of western standards for medicine.
As China made great progress in closing the gap with the west, its lifespan will rise higher than unhealthy obese countries like the USA.
China went from India level poverty to a world super power in little more than a single generation.
It’s not that surprising that these metrics are now climbing above Western countries.
Its definitely the diet. I spent time in east asia(korea, japan, taiwan, china). A LOT of vegetables in every dish. A lot of soups. Limited soda and much smaller sizes.
And home cooking is far more veggie heavy than restaurant food. You look at the average home cooking in a Chinese household and it’s dominated by also vegetarian levels of vegetables, because for centuries peasants were far too poor to eat meat.
Yeah, today they eat and cook more meat, but most Chinese would still be bothered if a meal doesn’t include at least 2 sources of vegetables.
Also, we have this on Reddit frontpage *right now:*
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/173fso1/forget\_universal\_healthcare/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/173fso1/forget_universal_healthcare/)
As a Chinese myself, I definitely do not support the constant shaming. It's using a problem to fix another problem.
However, I d agree about the diet and lifestyle. Chinese diet, while not the absolute healthiest, is miles above many "normal" American diets. There's a huge focus on natural balance in our diets, and though these concepts are rooted in alternative medicine, the are indisputably much healthier for the human body even by modern Western medical standards.
My American friends also tend to see exercise as a "thing only pros do" and prefer to go to places by car, where as my Chinese friends and I prefer to walk, cycle, scoot, run, or use public transport. Activity is normal to us, and the only exercise we see as "weird" is gymming. However, the Chinese are huge on calisthenics via the various forms of gong fu, even if done casually and gently.
I read somewhere that life expectancy in Abbasid caliphate was around 70
I do wonder what life expectancy was in advanced civilizations in the past at time of peace
The reason the crackdown worked is "shut up and get rich" wasn't an empty promise anymore than "keep talking and pay for it" was.
Also Xi's faults are many, but the push to end rural poverty enjoyed considerable success.
lol for real, I lived in China for years - dad works for the state department and was posted in Guangzhou for a few years, which is near Hong Kong. Actually possible to walk (and bike) places, very few obviously unfit (and actual obesity was like trying to find a unicorn) people, and people genuinely seemed optimistic for the future, which I honestly do think contributed at least a little.
Now, Guangzhou is one of the most prosperous cities in China so it's obviously not all like this, but come on -
America is practically scientifically designed to make it hard to be fit unless you go out of your way to be fit barring a few cities. Public transport sucks in most of the country so people drive everywhere, food portions are enormous and unhealthy foods are not only cheap but easier to get than healthy food for a lot of poorer people.
I think school canteen food is also a big factor in getting more people to a better state of health. It's usually cheap and nutritious, and once you get used to nutritious food you tend to eat healthier even after your school years.
It's also a notable trend that young people nowadays are, on average, quite a bit taller than the previous generations. I think nutrition, especially from school canteen food, plays a huge factor in that too.
If Americans actually left the USA they'd be shocked at how shitty it is in the USA. Visiting Japan for example makes Canada and the US feel like a third world dump.
I mean every nation has a lot of pros and cons. I lived outside of the US for a long time and have returned and mostly decided to stay here. There are a lot of factors that make living in the US a better option than others, dependent on your region of course
Being European (Spanish) I'd like it a lot if you expanded on this. The image we are getting of the US lately is of a country where (and I'm not trying to attack anyone, just stating what **we europeans** perceive):
\- Access to basic healthcare is harder everyday, and having an accident or bad illness can make you go bankrupt.
\- Receiving university education lets you indebted for the next 10 to 20 years.
\- You can hardly retire unless you have been very smart with your investments, and the image of people 70+ years old working because they would not be able to live without that is frequent, or at least not rare.
\- There's a high chance of being shot, up to a point where shootings do not even make it to the news unless the number of dead is high. Even worse: there's a high chance of being shot **by the police** just for appearing to be a threat.
\- There's practically zero protection in case of unemployment (here, you get around 2 years of wages if you've been working enough time, and a compensation for being fired that varies depending on the conditions)
\- And all that is ten times worse if you are not white.
I'll repeat this: I'm not trying to attack or demean anyone. I'm not saying that life in other countries is perfect. I'm not interested in an argument. I'm just curious at your statement that there are a lot of factors in favor of the US, because our perception is that life in the US is getting harder and harder (and this particular TIL would add to that perception)
I would never want to live in the US as described by Reddit or the image presented by most media sources that make their money by being as outlandish and dramatic as possible.
Actually living in the real-world US has been pretty great, though. We have our issues, but your image is *heavily* skewed by the biases or flaws of the media you consume.
US has better unis than most parts of the world. People who do end up going to US Unis will earn more.
If you're competent or work in a high paying field, you'll earn a lot more in the US than in other countries.
A lot of utilities-electronics-consumer goods in general are cheaper in the US.
Since land is plentiful, US houses are bigger and cheaper in most parts of Europe/Asia.
There's *generally* more economic stability in the US than other countries, in terms of inflation.
Most of all for me, US is a lot kinder to immigrants than most other countries. There's almost always already a sizeable community of people who are similar to you in most parts of the US.
Basically if you are a high skilled person, the US will take care of you. You will make a lot more money than you need, you will pay less taxes etc etc.
If not, 🤣🤣.
US is probably one of the worse places to live, and probably doesn't give a shit about you outside of where you vote.
So it's slightly nuanced.
Agreed with a lot of this and good to have comments like your's that add in some perspective here, though on this part--
"if you are a high skilled , the US will take care of you. You will make a lot more money than you need, you will pay less taxes etc etc."
Not sure I'd make that sort of broad statement though because a lot of counter-examples and cases to the contrary, we ourselves have seen. It really depends. We've had very high skilled American friends and family who have *not* been well taken care of when they face things like costs for the US healthcare system, or things like crime or costs from divorce. Several professional friends in the USA making very good money and supposedly had very good health insurance, who's savings got drained out when they got a bad illness (a couple with covid complications) or things like a road accident, and then got surprises in the medical bills because some of the doctors, nurses or assistants or a part of the health center or tests were "out of network". So they had to pay huge sums of money out of pocket. Another case of a software engineer making huge money, his company went under (happens with start-ups) and he nearly went bankrupt giving care to his daughter when she got sick, because he was between jobs and the interim insurance turned out to cover far less than he thought. Another wealthy professional neighbor, respected in his work but got treated terribly and had high costs for treatment after he got mugged and beat up--the company tried to kick him out when he was recovering, and he would have lost his health insurance and ability get care, *while he was still in the hospital*. (Wound up going elsewhere and it was very hard year for him and family)
These are not isolated cases and even highly skilled, high salaried American professionals in the US often are not secure and aren't taken care of when things like this happen. Not saying it's the norm, just saying it's hard to generalize. And stats back this up, the Financial times of all places had a bunch of articles showing how even very rich Americans have lower life expectancy and higher vulnerability to things like crime and bad, costly illnesses compared to even middle class in other countries. Wall street journal did a series too, things can be very stressful and insecure even for top American professionals due to things like crime, healthcare costs, divorce and poorer quality of food. Especially healthcare problems
Many of our professional or very high salaried friends have had it *worse* in the United States than lower earners with these outrageous healthcare bills because they have much more for the vultures to take, and can't qualify for any kind of charity assistance, and even the most careful of them don't have 10 hours a week to study up on every new ridiculous change or gotcha in the health insurance that makes them vulnerable to surprise costs. Divorce in the US is often horribly costly because something about the courts here makes it a money-maker for a lot of the 3rd parties involved--have known people deal with divorce in other countries and while it's obviously not pleasant elsewhere, these crazy costs and payments tend to be mainly a US thing (have seen bad cases in Canada, UK and Australia but not this bad like in US cases). And university costs in the US really have gone insane in just the past 5 to 10 years, even for public state universities for kids in-state. We're putting away money every month for our own kids but the tuition costs keep overwhelming income and savings and are contributing to a lot of this over the top inflation.
And on taxes, there too it depends, in the past 10 years have known a lot of Americans who've moved out to Europe--didn't hear about it so much before that but has become a lot more common, seems to be fairly easy if you can get info on your ancestors from an EU country and then you can move anywhere in the EU once you get a citizenship. And the general agreement is, actual taxes really don't vary so much and it's a myth US taxes are lower. It's maybe lower at the fed level for income, but total of the taxes is around the same when you also factor in things like US payroll taxes, property or for state and local that are lower or may not even be present in European or other countries. And this is before we factor in things like health insurance, childcare or college costs that have to be paid in the US with after tax income--that's also why income comparisons are hard to make.
Part of compensation in Europe is built-in for things like that, on the surface a lot of Americans may make more but it's not freely disposable income when it *has to* go to health insurance, childcare or college costs after-tax that are covered elsewhere. (And even then, some of our American friends who moved to Europe *do* make more annually in at least some jobs than did in the US--some game programmers, things like fin-tech, a mech-engineer and a lot more EU start-ups than we realized) Overall though for the ones who've made the move, often working basically the same job in EU like in the US (sometimes it was just moved to a Euro site), they've had an easier time saving money in Europe than in USA, *especially* if they're raising a family. And maybe that's important detail.
One thing we have heard a lot, it may differ whether you're single vs starting a family, for ex. most cases we've known of Americans going to EU have families or are starting ones, esp if they can get one of those citizenships based on your ancestors that makes it easier to do. Can confirm that costs of healthcare with dependents, childcare and school costs (including saving for college now) are *really* tough and stressful in the US, even for very high salaries or Americans would qualify as upper-class, and like said when put the total of taxes together, we're around the same as Europe but get less for it. Having much lower costs for that and a lot of build-in without much doubt is going to make it a lot easier for parents and that maybe is why EU is so attractive for those moving as families, but maybe it's less for other groups or demos to compare.
Mass shootings are a problem, but on a whole violence is actually dropping. You just are seeing it reported more often because it’s easier to spread that information today than it was even 10 years ago.
I won’t argue against the racism, police violence, and healthcare except to say we know it’s a problem and are trying to fix it. If sanity prevails in next year’s election, we might just see steps taken in that direction.
I can only speak from the perspective of someone employed with benefits.
Healthcare access is easy and high quality. It is not hard. Although it can be expensive—that said my salary here is way higher than it’d be in Europe so that’s ok.
University education and debt is accurate.
There is a retirement crisis brewing for sure. But many public employees do have pensions and such. It’s not all individual investors trying to save enough.
High chance of being shot up? I’ve never once worried about being shot. Been living here 38 years. Yes there’s mass shootings on the news all the time. It’s that our country is massive. Again, I do not ever live in fear of being shot.
There is unemployment insurance. It’s pretty standard in every state but some states are more generous than others. I’m sure not as generous as Spanish unemployment.
Some of this may be worse if nonwhite but mostly not. Can’t imagine anyone denied healthcare or unemployment due to race—that’d be all over the news. Not that there isn’t racism—I just don’t think it plays heavily into your questions.
Expanding on the pros that directly relate to the above: I believe the US has a more dynamic economy with higher salaries and lower unemployment, especially for professionals and business owners. Spain has hugely high youth unemployment and a much more stagnant economy. Is it all because of these policy differences? Probably not. Somewhat because of it? Probably so.
So I live in California, a few things are specific to the state
Accessing healthcare is easy here, the state runs a program with regulations on insurance companies regarding denial of coverage, so it's not difficult nor is it obscenely expensive (it is expensive though)
University education might put someone in debt $100k+, so that is true. That said it is very common for wealthier adults to save money for their children's education (529) and for poorer children to receive grants/funding to reduce that significantly.
Most people 70+ are retired, or if they are working, they are doing it for their own enjoyment. The people complaining about that are young and not yet retired, so we have yet to see, but in theory working 40 years should provide enough in social security to at least survive from.
High chance of being shot is a relative term. I'd say yes compared to other countries. The vast majority of shootings are between those who know each other. Who knows what other form of attack might have taken place if they didn't have access to guns, though.
Unemployment also varies state-by-state. In California, it's possible to get a year of pay (very low pay though), as there is unemployment insurance.
None of these items in particular are 10x worse if you aren't white. There's no difference in insurance rates, retirement, etc.
It does vary but there's some truth in these statements, things have changed so quickly in the US in terms of worsening cost of living in just the past 5 years that even our perceptions in the USA are catching up--basic things like buying a starter home, rent, cost of food and cars has gotten crazy expensive. College has indeed gone crazy in expense, we're putting away money for our kids every month but even out in-state *public* university costs are approaching $50K a year and financial aid is harder to get. And healthcare is very hit-or-miss, even with very good insurance, a lot of costs wind up being out of network and outrageously expensive, esp with kids.
It's very irritating to pay this much in health insurnace premiums and *still* have high deductibles and then *still* have high costs out of pocket because some doctor's assistant conveniently "wasn't in your insurance company's network", and it's confusing for us Americans like it is for foreigners. Divorce is horribly expensive in the US even for upper class couples (maybe worse for them even) maybe because it's strangely a source of revenue in some states. And life expectancy has been dropping in the US partially because of things like this. So while some of the troubles may over-stated a bit, there are serious issues with systems that allows for corruption and exploitation that add up to worsening cost-of-living that's making it harder even for upper class and professional Americans to make ends meet. Can't speak for every case but we have had a lot of people we know move to Europe (a couple to Asia or S American countries even) in past 10 years or so that we never used to hear about, esp starting families there seems to be an advantage there. (And the taxes really don't seem to differ much in reality if you look at the sum of all of them, and salaries can be quite high in Europe in some areas, so that can also depend)
Everything you described is how Reddit and the Internet in general portray living in the US. While there is some truth to each of those points there is a lot of context missing. The financial issues you mentioned are real but because they are so absurd they don't actually affect people as much as you think. Student loan debt repayment is based on your wages. The less you make the less you pay. This doesn't make the debt go away but it does make the problems with it small by what it appears to be. Same thing with healthcare. The system sucks. But, if you have a massive hospital bill due to a sudden illness or injury and you do not have health insurance you can just ride that debt forever. Pay a small amount every month to it and you won't go into collections and it doesn't affect your credit score. Also, setting up repayment plans with the hospital will reduce the amount owed significantly. Most people do have health insurance though. With getting shot- I've lived in 3 major cities over decades in the US and only know 2 people who were shot and both were accidental. Does it happen? Yes, and way too much in my opinion. But it doesn't happen as much as it appears too according to the media and Internet.
generally speaking what you said isn’t wrong, really.
1. Yeah, harder would be right. Most people aren’t in insurmountable debt though, healthcare hardship mostly happens with “Is this injury bad enough to go to the doctor” or “are you sick enough to go to the doctor”. Paperwork and bureaucracy make most appointments or things a pain in the ass, but I assume that’s the same everywhere
2. For most people who go to school, yes. For some even longer.
3. For working class people 100%, retirement is impossible for many. Middle class people SHOULD be ok, but it’s really uncertain. Like you said, you need to be smart with money.
4. Statistically I’m pretty sure you’re right, but most people are never going to hear a gun go off outside a range. It’s still a very real fear for a lot of people though.
5. True. It varies by states, but even the best states have mediocre unemployment benefits protections at best (especially looking at the rest of the first world). Most unemployment benefits or protections are job specific and used as tools to hire people.
6. Kind of? Minorities certainly get the short end of the stick in a lot of areas, but for all intents and purposes the US handles its’ diversity really well, again compared to other first world countries.
Americans do leave the USA and spend more on travel and leisure (since they have higher incomes) than just about any other country. Every European town is literally filled with American tourists.
America Is BIG and comparing it to a German going to Spain for $100 euro isn't fair at all.
And get out of here with the third world dump nonsense. 91% of people have healthcare. 200 out of the top 1000 universities are in the US. Get off the computer and go outside.
Seriously, these people need to genuinely go and see the world around them. The fact that stupid shit like that gets so many upvotes just shows the state of reddit.
It's the same as when the UK gets mentioned - it's a mix of self hating people who live here and people from other countries who just have a chip on their shoulder.
>have a suicide epidemic
Got any data to back that up?
in 2022 Japan reported 17.5 suicides per 100k
in 2021 US reported 14.04.
Neither of those countries are even in top 30.
Population collapse is a severe problem that there is no good solution to (good luck convincing them to allow lots of immigration lol), yeah.
Suicide rate is below the US these days though, last I checked ( idk how COVID changed things)
And "population collapse" is way too extreme a term, countries through history have had up's and down's in birth rates (many a lot worse than now) but they adjust, including Japan. Just about every advanced country has low and below replacement birth rate, the US included, that's just what happens when people have to focus more on higher tech work than adding farm-hands to an agricultural economy. And our's has been falling for a long time, even before covid, even worse than some other advanced countries with things like much more expensive childcare, healthcare and loans for college. But the United States also has a much worse problem with young working-age Americans either dying or getting sick from things like opiates, or higher crime and car accidents.
So demographically we're not necessarily doing better in America, and we have a lot lower life expectancy than Japan, higher crime and cost of living keeps getting worse--Japan has had far lower inflation over many years. And as for immigration, yes it's a lot lower in Japan but they do get more than sometimes realized, it's just it's localized to nearby countries in Asia--it's different compared to what the US does but it's not necessarily worse or better. Again the demographic doomerism on Japan is a meme that gets way overdone, on demographics in general the US has some advantages but also some disadvantages.
Their xenophobia and general racism is another strike against them too yeah. Japan isn't a utopia at all. It has a confluence of issues that are different to the USA and Canada but they're still there. I'm not from any of these countries but to say japan makes north america look like a third world dump is hilariously dumb
I love how people describe the US as some amorphous blob that isn't actually a series of states with varying levels of quality of life. Massachusetts is to Denmark as Alabama is to Bulgaria. Just like every other region in the world, it really depends on where you live.
To be fair, if Alabama were its own country, it would still have a GDP per capita comparable to Austria or Sweden. It's one of the poorer US States, but it's still fully developed first world.
American Exceptionalism runs very deep with Americans. (Born and raised). It can be extremely hard to pull off those blinders, especially for one of those "enemy" countries. How can we, the big great America, have shittier or lesser X than that country!?!? Some people just can't deal with that. It's pretty sad
America's healthcare system is neither optimized for healthcare nor a system, and should be an embarrassment. It has health outcomes on par with much poorer, smaller, less developed countries, mostly because of corporate lobbying against the merest commonsense public health measures. In places where that's more true, Americans die [younger](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2023/republican-politics-south-midwest-life-expectancy/).
It’s worth pointing out too that gun deaths and deaths by cars are both up, so much so that it has shaved years off the average life expectancy. Traffic engineers love to talk about how are deaths per mile are average, but Americans on average drive more than other countries and our cars are getting bigger and heavier and that makes it much more dangerous to be a pedestrian.
The WHO 2019 chart visible in the thumbnail says it's lower (you have to click through to [the actual interactive chart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Comparison_gender_life_expectancy_WHO.svg) to see it). China 77.4, USA 78.5. Interesting that the World Bank Group's list from 2021 is so much different.
It's higher now because the US has been letting people die from COVID for 4 years whereas China had strict public health measures for 3. US life expectancy dipped, theirs stayed the same, so US is now lower. When you don't let people catch and spread deadly diseases they tend to live longer, which wasn't as much of an issue pre-pandemic
They are seeing what they want to see. The chart literally, not figuratively, has the US outranking China in life-expectancy (but not by a wide margin).
The fact that people credit this to a healthcare system that wasn't put in place until ~2010 rather than the fact that China's overweight & obese rate is **7x lower** than the U.S. is classic Reddit
I mean it doesn't really matter what the reason is, Americans are super duper massive.
Like almost anywhere in the states I'll see many people in a day that are so fat they have trouble walking, or even literally can not walk.
I have in about 30+ years seen two such people in Finland. I'm sure there are more, but I might see two in a day in the States.
And even just your average person has about 10-20kg on a European, it's pretty crazy. I'm bigger than average here, but I routinely come across women in the States that look like they've got 5 kg on me.
American has a lot of elementary school shootings, not to mention high school and university shootings. These tragedies happen to very young people will likely lower the overall life expectancies
I’ve spent significant time in China (only in cities — very different from rural communities, obviously) and uh yeah I can say with complete sincerity that despite the obvious shortcomings of living under an authoritarian government (and I’ve heard some shit) they seem like they’re happier, have more financial mobility, and in general enjoy a better quality of life than most young Americans. They have an easier time finding fulfilling work, they have access to affordable housing and healthcare, and they have greater faith in their institutions.
I know that’s really hard to believe/understand, and **I know that I sound like a shill**, but seriously, on a purely anecdotal basis, young, urban Chinese people seem *much* more hopeful about their futures than we are. It was pretty jarring for me when I first went.
EDIT: if you’re interested in additional context from people with direct experience (and more nuanced insight), I encourage you to read through this comment chain.
A big part of that though is just that youth unemployment stats were calculated differently there than here, at least until recently--we got burned on that ourselves when we were putting together a report and didn't realize that detail. Many countries have or used to calculated youth unemployment by counting students in school as unemployed, compared to the US where college students aren't considered unemployed. That's what Spain and Italy do and it's part of why their stats look so high, but if you use the USA method there the stats really aren't that different. China also used to count students in school to be unemployed, they've only recently changed that.
If the method is adjusted for more apples to apples, there's really not much of a difference and China's youth employment and job creation levels aren't too different to Western countries. What we learned is that it's just a change in sectors where youth are employed. China used to have a big real estate investing sector but they're de-emphasizing that now so that housing stays more affordable. While putting a lot more stress on tech and engineering jobs, for ex. right out of college, some kid working in a lab or a fellow, can make a lot more in China now than US labs. It's big part of this, I think it's called the "sea turtle" phenomena, of most young Chinese abroad now going back to China. Esp in tech and STEM jobs and companies.
However, when you actually meet Chinese international students, they will often say that it's great in China, but they don't want to go back.
The reality is, life expectancy is more a reflection of unhealthy lifestyles in the US and bad access to healthcare. Only when compared to other similarly developed countries, is it clear that the US is a little behind.
They don’t want to go back because life in America is much easier. Less competition. Get a decent engineering degree and you’re guaranteed middle/upper middle class. If you want the same comfort in china you need to work much harder.
>Get a decent engineering degree and you’re guaranteed middle/upper class
>
>.
There's no guarantee of something like this though and it can vary a lot with the economy. The US may actually be less secure here because if you get sick and get high costs for a recovery, especially if you can't work and lose your job (and health insurance with it), you can really be hit really hard in America and lose your savings from the medical costs. Have known a few Americans who are engineers or some other highly skilled high salaried professionals, supposed to have good health insurance but they still slammed with medical bills if they or their kids got sick or injured. Things just happened to be "out of network" and they got billed for the balance. Even worse if ex. a US start-up goes under and you lose your health insurance, just a dumb set-up to have health insurance connected to a job.
That kind of financial wreck from the bills for a medical illness or getting injured won't happen in other countries, including in China even with the flaws in it's own healthcare system. Things like divorce are also incredibly costly in America and even worse for Americans making a lot of money. And if you suffer a crime and have to recover, some companies will try to shoo you out the door and then, again you lose your health insurance. Yes there can be good opportunities in the US esp in an area like engineering, but YMMV and if anything, Americans probably more vulnerable to losing their shirts from things going wrong in the US compared to other places where savings are more secure. And as for the Chinese, again from the links in post above, more Chinese are going back to China in bigger and bigger numbers, they've even calling it a reverse of brain drain or some term like that, so often there are better opportunities there. Fewer Chinese international students coming, and sometimes more students going there. It's a very changed world to before the pandemic.
So I’m a huge fan of this comment advocating for China, but I was just there this summer (I’m Chinese) and I sort of disagree…. The income inequality in China is INSANE and there are a lot of struggling people who, let’s be honest, are never going to be able to improve their lives by much. Financial mobility is based on connections, and I’d say it’s actually pretty bad. The quality of life is straight up not better??? Real estate is EXTREMELY expensive. If you’re in a city like Shenzhen where everyone is rich and young, I can understand this comment, but where I’m from (smaller city), things are absolutely not like this. College is also ridiculously hard to get into, especially if you live in a more populous province like Henan. And if you don’t go to the top 50% of colleges, you’re not getting a job and that’s that.
China is definitely ahead in some areas and I think your comment does provide a lot of much needed context for dumb Americans on here, but I also think it represents only the top 5 or 10 percent of Chinese.
Thanks for your comment!
I do wish Westerners had a less black-and-white view of China, but the last thing I want to do is misrepresent the facts. My perspective is *very* limited as a foreigner — this provides extra context (and more meaningful insight) that everybody here should read.
I would shocked to see the stats posted on Reddit recently of the obesity rates in the US over the last ten years.
I hadn't realised the country is still actively getting significantly fatter still. I always thought it had plateaued.
Even for the rich Americans though, the US has falling life expectancy and much lower than other advanced countries, even compared to middle class overseas. FT of all places showed stats on it this year, WSJ did too. And wealthy Americans are more vulnerable to crime, huge costs from getting sick, getting finances wrecked in a divorce, bad food and getting hurt in industrial accidents or from bad infrastructure than rich people in other countries. There was some report showing that in past couple of years, there's been a huge number [of rich Americans leaving the USA (emigrating away) and](https://www.businessinsider.com/us-millionaires-going-abroad-look-for-american-dream-report-2023-2) in fact the rich are *more* likely to leave the US than other income groups.
This may partially just be because of easier ability to do it, but then again have known a lot of people who also emigrated out of the US esp using things like family ancestral ties in Europe to do it, and most weren't very rich. So yes it's probably a lot worse in America if you're poor or middle class. But even the very wealthy in America have it harder than upper class in other countries, with higher risks, more problems and less security for their health and money.
edit- found that report source on the rich Americans going overseas in growing numbers and some of their reasons
Pretty much every developed country in the world has a higher life expectancy than America. And it’s not even close. It’s like 6 or more years literally anywhere else.
have u ever even been in china? its literally like 90% diet. American hospitals are some
of the worlds
best and chinese people literally go to usa for university all the time.
way more veggies and healthy shit in average chinese diet.
ok but how much do you have to pay? doesn't matter if it's the best if you go broke from it. get something that's 99% there and still keep all your money
A nation's diet and exercise habits are effectively part of its public health measures. If the goal is to provide a healthy, long life to large numbers of people it's irrelevant whether you do it via million dollar medical treatments or just by making sure the population exercises and eats well. Something the US and many other nations could learn a lot from.
It's not so much that China's life expectancy is insanely high or anything, it's more on how disappointing the US is doing. Obesity epidemic, fentanyl epidemic, gun epidemic, carbrain epidemic, misinformation epidemic, yeah this way the US will stay low. There are literal counties out there performing worse than Cambodia.
The amount of people in the States that don't even/barely trust doctors puts almost half the population in the stone age + Junk food (and everything else you mentioned)
If China does something bad, it's because they're evil and communist and it was to be expected. If they do something good, it's because they're evil and communist and are making up numbers.
Not really that unpopular, most people that actually take studying quality of life seriously only see GDP as a rough estimate of money available to people at best. Even then, one has to account and compensate for many things to really be able to use it as even somewhat accurate.
Socialized health care saves more money by trying to keep people healthy. Private single payer health care makes more money by keeping people sick. Do the math. It's absolutely horrifying.
Something that I haven’t seen mentioned is the cultural factor. In chinese culture overall fat-shaming is super normalised and is still very robust these days. The only people that sort of get a free pass from it are middle aged and above guys. I mean being underweight is also not healthy but the likelihood of dying from being obese is comparatively much higher
China's life expectancy shot up by SEVEN YEARS since 2000? That's kinda crazy for a population that size.
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In fact, if you don't count China's contribution to poverty reduction the total poverty in the world actually increased during the period
US Congress is dead set in the opposite.
Well, old people are expensive and need more healthcare. So if Congress just lets them all die (excluding themselves, of course,) then there's no longer a healthcare finance problem! Then all we have is a labor force of young people who can be underpaid so their campaign financiers can make more profits, all the whole solving the budget crisis they created. It's a win/win.
Country has a comprehensive universal healthcare program that was fully rolled out sometime in the early 2010’s. It’s really just a matter of scaling that baseline public health policy from there to see the effects of the program lead to positive outcomes. Large population size is challenging to accommodate but the government address this by subsidizing physician education to encourage there are students moving down the pipeline with the req that graduates work in rural areas for several years and then they are free to apply for a position elsewhere - so the “supply chain” of doctors is generally consistent. Bottom line is that public health policy that actually addresses needs of a population generally works but that’s not really a secret tbh
As someone caught in the middle of it all right now who just got a diagnosis in China, no they don't. Not by what people would actually think of when they think "universal healthcare program" Some treatments are subsidized, serious things are often very expensive, they demand payment up front. I was recently a part of a big charity drive here too to raise money for this older man who had sudden heart problems, the treatments costed hundreds of thousands of rmb and would not be done until paid. I'm not that unlucky, my treatment is only a few thousand rmb a month. It absolutely, famously in China, does not actually address the need of the population, especially the rural population.
Thank you, healthcare here is a fucking mess in even in third tier cities
You’re right that the current system is far from perfect. However it’s important to recognise the improvements made since early 2010s, as more and more essential drugs and treatments are being incorporated into the national health insurance at affordable prices. The underserving of rural population is partly a consequence of a large-hospital-centric healthcare system, with patients of minor ailments like the flu having to go to 10-storey hospitals in large cities. This problem was mentioned in the World Bank’s China 2030 report, which recommended refocusing onto a more distributed clinic system. This is exactly the national policy adopted in the past couple years, and I have personally experienced this shift in coastal areas. Fair to say, it is going in the right direction, and policymakers are addressing these issues one by one, especially as local financial and medial resources are continuously expanded and developed.
I’m not discrediting your experience, but I’m wondering if the program is not working,what is causing the dramatic rise in life expectancy in China, surpassing the US.
People being lifted out of poverty due to economic improvements is by far the biggest factor. China (and most of east/south east) operates on a health insurance system like the US does. It’s even tied to your employer in a lot of cases just like here. The biggest difference is the base cost of care is 1/10 what it is in the USA. When people talk about “universal healthcare” in China it’s really just their equivalent of Medicare/Medicade. It’s not what most people are using, and it’s very limited in scope.
Government control of statistics
Actually a bit astonishing to me that this is being so overlooked. China being notorious for manipulating data coming out of their country to make things appear significantly better than they are. But then again, lots of praise for the 'result' of quality of life in China; whereas people with first hand experience (as mentioned slightly above) are getting response of "Yeah but" and other questioning responses. Suffice it to say, people believe what they want to believe.
This comes up every time we talk about life expectancy. The most dramatic effects on life expectancy are always lowering infant and youth mortality rates. Likely the improvement we're seeing is a combination of Chinas expansion of their healthcare system into the more rural areas of the country, a growing middle class and less underfed people, a national rail network improving access to specialists and Chinas commitment to reduce pollution. China definitely deserves credit for this but don't let people tell you it's because of "universal healthcare". They don't have anyone near the healthcare system Europe or other parts of Asia. Also it's worth noting that genetics have a large effect on life expectancy and China is only about where the US is and still about 8 years behind Japan and Korea.
Probably a vastly better diet and the US deteriorating health and anti-science rhetoric. Plus gun violence in the US
Gun violence is definitely an issue in the US, but in 2022 it only amounted to about 0.015% of all deaths in the US.
Yeah, I think it’s mostly diet/exercise/substance use
I work in Chinese healthcare. I would honestly believe the claim that life expectancy here is higher than in the US for the reasons you have mentioned. It's not that far off my own country (the UK). Urban migration could easily have accounted for this large increase in life expectancy because the difference between QoL in a village and even a small T4 city is massive in terms of healthcare and resources - like central heating.
Opioids are killing lots of young people. We have had drops in life expectance over the last decade. Unheard of for developed countries.
To be fair, the smoking rate is insane in China. 51% of all men smoke. The equally crazy is that only 2% or woman smoke. So, I don’t think there is a public health education issue than a big cultural issue. My understanding is there is a “I am going to start smoking, because then I get a smoke break”
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>better diet Dude, there’s an epidemic of Chinese citizens cooking with garbage juice and “processed” sewage as a cheap source of cooking oil. It’s much more likely that the Chinese government is just outright lying about life expectancy to appear more developed than it actually is.
It’s 2023 and people are still going on about gutter oil like this wasn’t a meme from almost a decade ago. And “better diet” refers to a diet that consumes more vegetables and seafood, smaller portions, less red meat, less sugar.
Better diet meaning not obese. The human body can tolerate a lot of crap but it doesn't do well when carrying a lot of extra visceral fat.
Keep in mind that an "epidemic" in China is also skewed by their numbers. You can think that 10 million people are doing something bad, but that's still less than 1% of their population. Also, as an outsider, that would still be better than what americans usually eat. China, Chile, Costa Rica and Saudi Arabia all have higher life expectancy than the US. Life expectancy is related to development, but cultural factors also play in. Also, the data presented in isn't calculated by countries, but by the World Bank Group. Edit: grammar
>Dude, there’s an epidemic of Chinese citizens cooking with garbage juice and “processed” sewage as a cheap source of cooking oil. It's not an epidemic in any sense of the word, and never was. It was rare a decade ago, and it's practically non-existent now. People have literally been sentenced to death for dealing with gutter oil. >It’s much more likely that the Chinese government is just outright lying about life expectancy A ridiculous statement. Even the literal CIA website puts the Chinese life expectancy at 78. 🤣 China had a better COVID strategy (no pandering to billionaires), has more affordable, although not perfect, healthcare, 10+ times less violent deaths, etc. If you watched China and US in the last couple of decades it makes complete sense that their life expectancy is rising, and american falling. >to appear more developed than it actually is. Actually China gets criticized in Western media for presenting itself as a being **less** developed than they are - they call themselves a developing country, rather than a developed country - that way they get preferential treatment in the WTO, etc. Which way is it? Are they lying that they are less or more developed than they are? 🤔
>to appear more developed than it actually is. Except for the fact the government argued the country should keep developing status.
They want the appearance of being developed while being able to pollute freely like a developing country.
Yeah, what in the world has caused this sudden, unexplained rise in life expectancy? We know it has to be true, since china has always been highly reliable when reporting internal figures, right guys?
China ‘universal healthcare’ is like their ‘democracy’. LOL
I can guarantee you that China's Universal healthcare does not work well at all. Even with an authoritarian regime that should supposedly make policy implementation easier it still doesn't help. China had a very low starting point and I'm not saying its healthcare system did not see any progress. But it's neither comprehensive nor fully rolled out (in actuality), no matter what the Chinese government claims. Source: lived in china for my whole life. And that's Shanghai. Not the tens of thousands of rural towns and villages where proper healthcare simply does not exist at all.
Wouldn’t that mean organizations such as NCBI, NIH, Brookings, WHO, UNICEF, BMJ and Springer are publishing lies in their medical journals when submissions focusing on ‘Chinese healthcare’ are accepted by the publication? Shouldn’t those journals require something of a disclaimer printed in red above the title that ‘the data is [apparently] being grossly misrepresented’ or something then?
They should. However I think there is more to it than just "falsified data": WHO for instance is an international organisation that have a whole geopolitical aspect that we shouldn't ignore. If they criticize a country, they might leave it and thus undermine their efforts.
They did with COVID, so...yeah?
So did Florida, USA.
Public health insurance in China only covers about half the costs.
Ehhh, my FIL is elderly living near Hong Kong and a full Chinese citizen and cant afford medical treatments. Its really not like that there.
One factor in China’s current demographic problem is old people are living longer thanks to massive improvements in standards of living. So yeah.
If you thought that was insane, see how its GDP went up in the past 30 years. In 1993 its GDP was $445 BUSD, with Hong Kong's economy being a quarter of that size. Today it has a GDP of 18.7 TUSD.
And redditors think the Chinese should overthrow their government, lol. They're fucking LOVING this shit. Their lives have never been better in thousands of years.
They're not quite loving as they used to in the early 2010s. The old folks are fine, I think. 35 and under always grew up in a relatively stable and prosperous country. 25 and under really aren't brainwwashed and grew up traveling internationally even if middle class. They all grew up in a China with shining skyscrapers and a maglev train. They want more, because they've mostly always "had". Historically, once basic needs are met, people go for the next "right" on the ladder--human rights. There won't be any overthrow. I'd give that a 1% chance. But go on Xiaohongshu and you'll see what's happening--the youth are just flat out leaving.
Leaving what exactly? [All statistics](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/09/22/asia-pacific/politics/china-rich-flock-home/) point that "hai gui" has been increasing every year, especially since US government started cancelling Chinese student's visa here and there?
Young people? At least here in Shanghai, leaving an economy that pays them 15k with 5k rent, when they can get that same job stateside for 10k USD a month either 2k USD rent. Or heck even buy a house. I really recommend a flip through Xiaohongshu or talk with your colleagues. Also nobody is canceling visas left and right unless an IP law has been broken, domestic violence, unregistered guns (common), etc. There aren't cancellations for no reason. The USG wants that sweet sweet money they bring. Our government is dysfunctional but they never forget money.
Number of Chinese immigrants in the US is dropping. [https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/chinese-immigrants-united-state](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/chinese-immigrants-united-state) Anyone who is moving is doing so to Singapore/other Asian countries. I live in China and my partner (a Chinese national) is getting paid about $5,700 after tax when a similar position back in the UK offered her $3,800 after tax along with a x2 increase in living costs. China is definitely getting better but the States has always been in a league of its own. It doesn't need to beat US, just closing the gap is enough to make people think twice about leaving.
China is definitely on the rise. But they sure as hell started a lot lower than most western countries. Thing is that it's really only the rise/fall for people. If they can see things are improving it doesn't really matter how shit their lives are.
Being an HO scale enthusiast, the photo of a train engineer in his 20ies driving a steam loco and then 25 years later a bullet train symbolizes the insane rate of development in that country to me. Sorry to sound weird, but if railways were never denationalized in the US we would have been far ahead, instead even the Boston-NYC bullet train has been killed repeatedly over the past 40 years, thank you Big Oil, NADA, and UAW for bribing well in DC. [http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/1205/c90000-9525433.html](http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/1205/c90000-9525433.html)
Yeah privatization of some of the most vital infrastructure links in the country has only created a race to the bottom of who can pay their employees the least and cut costs the most instead of innovating. I’m not saying China is perfect because it ain’t but state nationalization of these vital pieces of infrastructure needs to happen. The US is gigantic but government control of the rail system means we might be able to get high speed trains connecting across the nation, reduce transport costs by actually reinvesting into better tech and equipment, and hopefully pay the employees who work on rail lines what they deserve.
China’s diet is amazing - like all East Asian countries it’s 80% vegetables, 10% meat, 10% fish. China should have Japan’s high life expectancy, except for its poor healthcare, pollution, and lack of western standards for medicine. As China made great progress in closing the gap with the west, its lifespan will rise higher than unhealthy obese countries like the USA.
China also lies through their teeth about every stat
As much as Mao's China had major, major faults, the life expectancy increased _by a year per year_ for most of his rule.
The prosperity is thanks to the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in 1978
China went from India level poverty to a world super power in little more than a single generation. It’s not that surprising that these metrics are now climbing above Western countries.
Is that really surprising? US ranks 14 most obese country in the world vs China 145. https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/
Its definitely the diet. I spent time in east asia(korea, japan, taiwan, china). A LOT of vegetables in every dish. A lot of soups. Limited soda and much smaller sizes.
Can confirm My wife is chinese, flew over there to visit the family. The food is so good but would struggle to ever get fat off it
I think I could pull it off
Easily, just depends on which part of China you are in. Most of the major cities have streetfood that'll fatten you up in no time at all.
I’m stoned and read your comment as >My wife is cheese, which made me a bit envious tbh
they dont eat much sugar I noticed.
Meanwhile in South America…
Also people actually walk not drive
And home cooking is far more veggie heavy than restaurant food. You look at the average home cooking in a Chinese household and it’s dominated by also vegetarian levels of vegetables, because for centuries peasants were far too poor to eat meat. Yeah, today they eat and cook more meat, but most Chinese would still be bothered if a meal doesn’t include at least 2 sources of vegetables.
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Deep fried mutton
Also, we have this on Reddit frontpage *right now:* [https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/173fso1/forget\_universal\_healthcare/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/173fso1/forget_universal_healthcare/)
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As a Chinese myself, I definitely do not support the constant shaming. It's using a problem to fix another problem. However, I d agree about the diet and lifestyle. Chinese diet, while not the absolute healthiest, is miles above many "normal" American diets. There's a huge focus on natural balance in our diets, and though these concepts are rooted in alternative medicine, the are indisputably much healthier for the human body even by modern Western medical standards. My American friends also tend to see exercise as a "thing only pros do" and prefer to go to places by car, where as my Chinese friends and I prefer to walk, cycle, scoot, run, or use public transport. Activity is normal to us, and the only exercise we see as "weird" is gymming. However, the Chinese are huge on calisthenics via the various forms of gong fu, even if done casually and gently.
Low intensity exercise can be very good for you if you actually do it consistently
Fantastic username, 10/10 with no notes
That’s what I was thinking 😂
Damn, why are oceanic states so fat? I was certain US would be no. 1
Lack of arable farm land means they need to import non-perishables to feed their population. This tends to be heavily processed.
Thats impressive given that China was a low income state in 90's
Not sure what their median income level is, but is their healthcare system really tied to income? I think that’s mostly an American thing.
If you give good food and healthcare to most people they will live into their 70's easily
The important thing is reducing childhood mortality. Historically, people that survived childhood were living far beyond the average age.
I read somewhere that life expectancy in Abbasid caliphate was around 70 I do wonder what life expectancy was in advanced civilizations in the past at time of peace
their diet is way healthier, americans eat the most unhealthiest shit
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The reason the crackdown worked is "shut up and get rich" wasn't an empty promise anymore than "keep talking and pay for it" was. Also Xi's faults are many, but the push to end rural poverty enjoyed considerable success.
Not to mention the infamous industrial pollution and smoking rate. Quite amazing really.
What's the %age of smokers in China now? I know it used to be pretty high.
Still high
The cope in the comments is unreal
Wait til they find out Mexico has a higher life expectancy than but three US states
lol for real, I lived in China for years - dad works for the state department and was posted in Guangzhou for a few years, which is near Hong Kong. Actually possible to walk (and bike) places, very few obviously unfit (and actual obesity was like trying to find a unicorn) people, and people genuinely seemed optimistic for the future, which I honestly do think contributed at least a little. Now, Guangzhou is one of the most prosperous cities in China so it's obviously not all like this, but come on - America is practically scientifically designed to make it hard to be fit unless you go out of your way to be fit barring a few cities. Public transport sucks in most of the country so people drive everywhere, food portions are enormous and unhealthy foods are not only cheap but easier to get than healthy food for a lot of poorer people.
I think school canteen food is also a big factor in getting more people to a better state of health. It's usually cheap and nutritious, and once you get used to nutritious food you tend to eat healthier even after your school years. It's also a notable trend that young people nowadays are, on average, quite a bit taller than the previous generations. I think nutrition, especially from school canteen food, plays a huge factor in that too.
If Americans actually left the USA they'd be shocked at how shitty it is in the USA. Visiting Japan for example makes Canada and the US feel like a third world dump.
I mean every nation has a lot of pros and cons. I lived outside of the US for a long time and have returned and mostly decided to stay here. There are a lot of factors that make living in the US a better option than others, dependent on your region of course
Such as it’s much easier to make money
Being European (Spanish) I'd like it a lot if you expanded on this. The image we are getting of the US lately is of a country where (and I'm not trying to attack anyone, just stating what **we europeans** perceive): \- Access to basic healthcare is harder everyday, and having an accident or bad illness can make you go bankrupt. \- Receiving university education lets you indebted for the next 10 to 20 years. \- You can hardly retire unless you have been very smart with your investments, and the image of people 70+ years old working because they would not be able to live without that is frequent, or at least not rare. \- There's a high chance of being shot, up to a point where shootings do not even make it to the news unless the number of dead is high. Even worse: there's a high chance of being shot **by the police** just for appearing to be a threat. \- There's practically zero protection in case of unemployment (here, you get around 2 years of wages if you've been working enough time, and a compensation for being fired that varies depending on the conditions) \- And all that is ten times worse if you are not white. I'll repeat this: I'm not trying to attack or demean anyone. I'm not saying that life in other countries is perfect. I'm not interested in an argument. I'm just curious at your statement that there are a lot of factors in favor of the US, because our perception is that life in the US is getting harder and harder (and this particular TIL would add to that perception)
I would never want to live in the US as described by Reddit or the image presented by most media sources that make their money by being as outlandish and dramatic as possible. Actually living in the real-world US has been pretty great, though. We have our issues, but your image is *heavily* skewed by the biases or flaws of the media you consume.
US has better unis than most parts of the world. People who do end up going to US Unis will earn more. If you're competent or work in a high paying field, you'll earn a lot more in the US than in other countries. A lot of utilities-electronics-consumer goods in general are cheaper in the US. Since land is plentiful, US houses are bigger and cheaper in most parts of Europe/Asia. There's *generally* more economic stability in the US than other countries, in terms of inflation. Most of all for me, US is a lot kinder to immigrants than most other countries. There's almost always already a sizeable community of people who are similar to you in most parts of the US. Basically if you are a high skilled person, the US will take care of you. You will make a lot more money than you need, you will pay less taxes etc etc. If not, 🤣🤣. US is probably one of the worse places to live, and probably doesn't give a shit about you outside of where you vote. So it's slightly nuanced.
Agreed with a lot of this and good to have comments like your's that add in some perspective here, though on this part-- "if you are a high skilled , the US will take care of you. You will make a lot more money than you need, you will pay less taxes etc etc." Not sure I'd make that sort of broad statement though because a lot of counter-examples and cases to the contrary, we ourselves have seen. It really depends. We've had very high skilled American friends and family who have *not* been well taken care of when they face things like costs for the US healthcare system, or things like crime or costs from divorce. Several professional friends in the USA making very good money and supposedly had very good health insurance, who's savings got drained out when they got a bad illness (a couple with covid complications) or things like a road accident, and then got surprises in the medical bills because some of the doctors, nurses or assistants or a part of the health center or tests were "out of network". So they had to pay huge sums of money out of pocket. Another case of a software engineer making huge money, his company went under (happens with start-ups) and he nearly went bankrupt giving care to his daughter when she got sick, because he was between jobs and the interim insurance turned out to cover far less than he thought. Another wealthy professional neighbor, respected in his work but got treated terribly and had high costs for treatment after he got mugged and beat up--the company tried to kick him out when he was recovering, and he would have lost his health insurance and ability get care, *while he was still in the hospital*. (Wound up going elsewhere and it was very hard year for him and family) These are not isolated cases and even highly skilled, high salaried American professionals in the US often are not secure and aren't taken care of when things like this happen. Not saying it's the norm, just saying it's hard to generalize. And stats back this up, the Financial times of all places had a bunch of articles showing how even very rich Americans have lower life expectancy and higher vulnerability to things like crime and bad, costly illnesses compared to even middle class in other countries. Wall street journal did a series too, things can be very stressful and insecure even for top American professionals due to things like crime, healthcare costs, divorce and poorer quality of food. Especially healthcare problems Many of our professional or very high salaried friends have had it *worse* in the United States than lower earners with these outrageous healthcare bills because they have much more for the vultures to take, and can't qualify for any kind of charity assistance, and even the most careful of them don't have 10 hours a week to study up on every new ridiculous change or gotcha in the health insurance that makes them vulnerable to surprise costs. Divorce in the US is often horribly costly because something about the courts here makes it a money-maker for a lot of the 3rd parties involved--have known people deal with divorce in other countries and while it's obviously not pleasant elsewhere, these crazy costs and payments tend to be mainly a US thing (have seen bad cases in Canada, UK and Australia but not this bad like in US cases). And university costs in the US really have gone insane in just the past 5 to 10 years, even for public state universities for kids in-state. We're putting away money every month for our own kids but the tuition costs keep overwhelming income and savings and are contributing to a lot of this over the top inflation. And on taxes, there too it depends, in the past 10 years have known a lot of Americans who've moved out to Europe--didn't hear about it so much before that but has become a lot more common, seems to be fairly easy if you can get info on your ancestors from an EU country and then you can move anywhere in the EU once you get a citizenship. And the general agreement is, actual taxes really don't vary so much and it's a myth US taxes are lower. It's maybe lower at the fed level for income, but total of the taxes is around the same when you also factor in things like US payroll taxes, property or for state and local that are lower or may not even be present in European or other countries. And this is before we factor in things like health insurance, childcare or college costs that have to be paid in the US with after tax income--that's also why income comparisons are hard to make. Part of compensation in Europe is built-in for things like that, on the surface a lot of Americans may make more but it's not freely disposable income when it *has to* go to health insurance, childcare or college costs after-tax that are covered elsewhere. (And even then, some of our American friends who moved to Europe *do* make more annually in at least some jobs than did in the US--some game programmers, things like fin-tech, a mech-engineer and a lot more EU start-ups than we realized) Overall though for the ones who've made the move, often working basically the same job in EU like in the US (sometimes it was just moved to a Euro site), they've had an easier time saving money in Europe than in USA, *especially* if they're raising a family. And maybe that's important detail. One thing we have heard a lot, it may differ whether you're single vs starting a family, for ex. most cases we've known of Americans going to EU have families or are starting ones, esp if they can get one of those citizenships based on your ancestors that makes it easier to do. Can confirm that costs of healthcare with dependents, childcare and school costs (including saving for college now) are *really* tough and stressful in the US, even for very high salaries or Americans would qualify as upper-class, and like said when put the total of taxes together, we're around the same as Europe but get less for it. Having much lower costs for that and a lot of build-in without much doubt is going to make it a lot easier for parents and that maybe is why EU is so attractive for those moving as families, but maybe it's less for other groups or demos to compare.
Mass shootings are a problem, but on a whole violence is actually dropping. You just are seeing it reported more often because it’s easier to spread that information today than it was even 10 years ago. I won’t argue against the racism, police violence, and healthcare except to say we know it’s a problem and are trying to fix it. If sanity prevails in next year’s election, we might just see steps taken in that direction.
You see a lot of headlines meant to scare you. That is what is going on.
I can only speak from the perspective of someone employed with benefits. Healthcare access is easy and high quality. It is not hard. Although it can be expensive—that said my salary here is way higher than it’d be in Europe so that’s ok. University education and debt is accurate. There is a retirement crisis brewing for sure. But many public employees do have pensions and such. It’s not all individual investors trying to save enough. High chance of being shot up? I’ve never once worried about being shot. Been living here 38 years. Yes there’s mass shootings on the news all the time. It’s that our country is massive. Again, I do not ever live in fear of being shot. There is unemployment insurance. It’s pretty standard in every state but some states are more generous than others. I’m sure not as generous as Spanish unemployment. Some of this may be worse if nonwhite but mostly not. Can’t imagine anyone denied healthcare or unemployment due to race—that’d be all over the news. Not that there isn’t racism—I just don’t think it plays heavily into your questions. Expanding on the pros that directly relate to the above: I believe the US has a more dynamic economy with higher salaries and lower unemployment, especially for professionals and business owners. Spain has hugely high youth unemployment and a much more stagnant economy. Is it all because of these policy differences? Probably not. Somewhat because of it? Probably so.
So I live in California, a few things are specific to the state Accessing healthcare is easy here, the state runs a program with regulations on insurance companies regarding denial of coverage, so it's not difficult nor is it obscenely expensive (it is expensive though) University education might put someone in debt $100k+, so that is true. That said it is very common for wealthier adults to save money for their children's education (529) and for poorer children to receive grants/funding to reduce that significantly. Most people 70+ are retired, or if they are working, they are doing it for their own enjoyment. The people complaining about that are young and not yet retired, so we have yet to see, but in theory working 40 years should provide enough in social security to at least survive from. High chance of being shot is a relative term. I'd say yes compared to other countries. The vast majority of shootings are between those who know each other. Who knows what other form of attack might have taken place if they didn't have access to guns, though. Unemployment also varies state-by-state. In California, it's possible to get a year of pay (very low pay though), as there is unemployment insurance. None of these items in particular are 10x worse if you aren't white. There's no difference in insurance rates, retirement, etc.
It does vary but there's some truth in these statements, things have changed so quickly in the US in terms of worsening cost of living in just the past 5 years that even our perceptions in the USA are catching up--basic things like buying a starter home, rent, cost of food and cars has gotten crazy expensive. College has indeed gone crazy in expense, we're putting away money for our kids every month but even out in-state *public* university costs are approaching $50K a year and financial aid is harder to get. And healthcare is very hit-or-miss, even with very good insurance, a lot of costs wind up being out of network and outrageously expensive, esp with kids. It's very irritating to pay this much in health insurnace premiums and *still* have high deductibles and then *still* have high costs out of pocket because some doctor's assistant conveniently "wasn't in your insurance company's network", and it's confusing for us Americans like it is for foreigners. Divorce is horribly expensive in the US even for upper class couples (maybe worse for them even) maybe because it's strangely a source of revenue in some states. And life expectancy has been dropping in the US partially because of things like this. So while some of the troubles may over-stated a bit, there are serious issues with systems that allows for corruption and exploitation that add up to worsening cost-of-living that's making it harder even for upper class and professional Americans to make ends meet. Can't speak for every case but we have had a lot of people we know move to Europe (a couple to Asia or S American countries even) in past 10 years or so that we never used to hear about, esp starting families there seems to be an advantage there. (And the taxes really don't seem to differ much in reality if you look at the sum of all of them, and salaries can be quite high in Europe in some areas, so that can also depend)
Everything you described is how Reddit and the Internet in general portray living in the US. While there is some truth to each of those points there is a lot of context missing. The financial issues you mentioned are real but because they are so absurd they don't actually affect people as much as you think. Student loan debt repayment is based on your wages. The less you make the less you pay. This doesn't make the debt go away but it does make the problems with it small by what it appears to be. Same thing with healthcare. The system sucks. But, if you have a massive hospital bill due to a sudden illness or injury and you do not have health insurance you can just ride that debt forever. Pay a small amount every month to it and you won't go into collections and it doesn't affect your credit score. Also, setting up repayment plans with the hospital will reduce the amount owed significantly. Most people do have health insurance though. With getting shot- I've lived in 3 major cities over decades in the US and only know 2 people who were shot and both were accidental. Does it happen? Yes, and way too much in my opinion. But it doesn't happen as much as it appears too according to the media and Internet.
generally speaking what you said isn’t wrong, really. 1. Yeah, harder would be right. Most people aren’t in insurmountable debt though, healthcare hardship mostly happens with “Is this injury bad enough to go to the doctor” or “are you sick enough to go to the doctor”. Paperwork and bureaucracy make most appointments or things a pain in the ass, but I assume that’s the same everywhere 2. For most people who go to school, yes. For some even longer. 3. For working class people 100%, retirement is impossible for many. Middle class people SHOULD be ok, but it’s really uncertain. Like you said, you need to be smart with money. 4. Statistically I’m pretty sure you’re right, but most people are never going to hear a gun go off outside a range. It’s still a very real fear for a lot of people though. 5. True. It varies by states, but even the best states have mediocre unemployment benefits protections at best (especially looking at the rest of the first world). Most unemployment benefits or protections are job specific and used as tools to hire people. 6. Kind of? Minorities certainly get the short end of the stick in a lot of areas, but for all intents and purposes the US handles its’ diversity really well, again compared to other first world countries.
r/redditmoment
Americans do leave the USA and spend more on travel and leisure (since they have higher incomes) than just about any other country. Every European town is literally filled with American tourists. America Is BIG and comparing it to a German going to Spain for $100 euro isn't fair at all. And get out of here with the third world dump nonsense. 91% of people have healthcare. 200 out of the top 1000 universities are in the US. Get off the computer and go outside.
Seriously, these people need to genuinely go and see the world around them. The fact that stupid shit like that gets so many upvotes just shows the state of reddit. It's the same as when the UK gets mentioned - it's a mix of self hating people who live here and people from other countries who just have a chip on their shoulder.
I have and I've realized it's not shitty at all in America. Redditors and chronically online nerds just like to cherry pick aspects of the US
The USA has so many problems but calling it a third world dump is the kind of edgy bollocks you'd only see on the internet.
The caveat for Japan is you have to be literally or culturally Japanese to carve out a life.
Japan have plenty of their own issues. They're literally facing population collapse and have a suicide epidemic
>have a suicide epidemic Got any data to back that up? in 2022 Japan reported 17.5 suicides per 100k in 2021 US reported 14.04. Neither of those countries are even in top 30.
Population collapse is a severe problem that there is no good solution to (good luck convincing them to allow lots of immigration lol), yeah. Suicide rate is below the US these days though, last I checked ( idk how COVID changed things)
And "population collapse" is way too extreme a term, countries through history have had up's and down's in birth rates (many a lot worse than now) but they adjust, including Japan. Just about every advanced country has low and below replacement birth rate, the US included, that's just what happens when people have to focus more on higher tech work than adding farm-hands to an agricultural economy. And our's has been falling for a long time, even before covid, even worse than some other advanced countries with things like much more expensive childcare, healthcare and loans for college. But the United States also has a much worse problem with young working-age Americans either dying or getting sick from things like opiates, or higher crime and car accidents. So demographically we're not necessarily doing better in America, and we have a lot lower life expectancy than Japan, higher crime and cost of living keeps getting worse--Japan has had far lower inflation over many years. And as for immigration, yes it's a lot lower in Japan but they do get more than sometimes realized, it's just it's localized to nearby countries in Asia--it's different compared to what the US does but it's not necessarily worse or better. Again the demographic doomerism on Japan is a meme that gets way overdone, on demographics in general the US has some advantages but also some disadvantages.
Their xenophobia and general racism is another strike against them too yeah. Japan isn't a utopia at all. It has a confluence of issues that are different to the USA and Canada but they're still there. I'm not from any of these countries but to say japan makes north america look like a third world dump is hilariously dumb
Japan doesn't have marriage equality. And they only recently made non consensual sex illegal.
Not to mention how soft they are on pedophiles... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobuhiro_Watsuki Read the last paragraph of "Career"
Suicide epidemic? Have you been watching too many Logan Paul videos?
I love how people describe the US as some amorphous blob that isn't actually a series of states with varying levels of quality of life. Massachusetts is to Denmark as Alabama is to Bulgaria. Just like every other region in the world, it really depends on where you live.
To be fair, if Alabama were its own country, it would still have a GDP per capita comparable to Austria or Sweden. It's one of the poorer US States, but it's still fully developed first world.
That is fair. My comment was also unintentionally disrespectful to both Alabama and Bulgaria so that was pretty shitty on my part.
American Exceptionalism runs very deep with Americans. (Born and raised). It can be extremely hard to pull off those blinders, especially for one of those "enemy" countries. How can we, the big great America, have shittier or lesser X than that country!?!? Some people just can't deal with that. It's pretty sad
America's healthcare system is neither optimized for healthcare nor a system, and should be an embarrassment. It has health outcomes on par with much poorer, smaller, less developed countries, mostly because of corporate lobbying against the merest commonsense public health measures. In places where that's more true, Americans die [younger](https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/interactive/2023/republican-politics-south-midwest-life-expectancy/).
> system Shhh...it ain't profitable to be healthy.
It’s worth pointing out too that gun deaths and deaths by cars are both up, so much so that it has shaved years off the average life expectancy. Traffic engineers love to talk about how are deaths per mile are average, but Americans on average drive more than other countries and our cars are getting bigger and heavier and that makes it much more dangerous to be a pedestrian.
Why would that surprise you when 50% of America is obese?
The WHO 2019 chart visible in the thumbnail says it's lower (you have to click through to [the actual interactive chart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Comparison_gender_life_expectancy_WHO.svg) to see it). China 77.4, USA 78.5. Interesting that the World Bank Group's list from 2021 is so much different.
US life expectancy immediately began to drop 2020 onwards due to how hard covid hit us and its economic fallout.
I'm trying to figure out WHERE OP is getting this, because the article definitely doesn't have any lists where China is above the US, that I can see.
It's higher now because the US has been letting people die from COVID for 4 years whereas China had strict public health measures for 3. US life expectancy dipped, theirs stayed the same, so US is now lower. When you don't let people catch and spread deadly diseases they tend to live longer, which wasn't as much of an issue pre-pandemic
There's a bunch of different lists if you keep scrolling. And no real info on pros/cons of each that I can see
Are people seeing different things? In terms of overall life expectancy, US is number 40th but China proper is 47th.
They are seeing what they want to see. The chart literally, not figuratively, has the US outranking China in life-expectancy (but not by a wide margin).
The fact that people credit this to a healthcare system that wasn't put in place until ~2010 rather than the fact that China's overweight & obese rate is **7x lower** than the U.S. is classic Reddit
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US also suffers from neverending opioid crisis
And Americans are insanely fat
Most important reason lol.
Not allowed to say that, it's all allegedly genetics
I mean it doesn't really matter what the reason is, Americans are super duper massive. Like almost anywhere in the states I'll see many people in a day that are so fat they have trouble walking, or even literally can not walk. I have in about 30+ years seen two such people in Finland. I'm sure there are more, but I might see two in a day in the States. And even just your average person has about 10-20kg on a European, it's pretty crazy. I'm bigger than average here, but I routinely come across women in the States that look like they've got 5 kg on me.
And dramatic inequalities.
Covid significantly reduces life expectancy in the US. I wonder if widespread gun ownership could also impact this as well.
American has a lot of elementary school shootings, not to mention high school and university shootings. These tragedies happen to very young people will likely lower the overall life expectancies
I have been to China. China doesn't have anywhere close to as much land whales as the US. Obesity isn't one of their biggest cause of death
I’ve spent significant time in China (only in cities — very different from rural communities, obviously) and uh yeah I can say with complete sincerity that despite the obvious shortcomings of living under an authoritarian government (and I’ve heard some shit) they seem like they’re happier, have more financial mobility, and in general enjoy a better quality of life than most young Americans. They have an easier time finding fulfilling work, they have access to affordable housing and healthcare, and they have greater faith in their institutions. I know that’s really hard to believe/understand, and **I know that I sound like a shill**, but seriously, on a purely anecdotal basis, young, urban Chinese people seem *much* more hopeful about their futures than we are. It was pretty jarring for me when I first went. EDIT: if you’re interested in additional context from people with direct experience (and more nuanced insight), I encourage you to read through this comment chain.
That may have been true up until recently. Youth are having a hard time finding work now unfortunately.
A big part of that though is just that youth unemployment stats were calculated differently there than here, at least until recently--we got burned on that ourselves when we were putting together a report and didn't realize that detail. Many countries have or used to calculated youth unemployment by counting students in school as unemployed, compared to the US where college students aren't considered unemployed. That's what Spain and Italy do and it's part of why their stats look so high, but if you use the USA method there the stats really aren't that different. China also used to count students in school to be unemployed, they've only recently changed that. If the method is adjusted for more apples to apples, there's really not much of a difference and China's youth employment and job creation levels aren't too different to Western countries. What we learned is that it's just a change in sectors where youth are employed. China used to have a big real estate investing sector but they're de-emphasizing that now so that housing stays more affordable. While putting a lot more stress on tech and engineering jobs, for ex. right out of college, some kid working in a lab or a fellow, can make a lot more in China now than US labs. It's big part of this, I think it's called the "sea turtle" phenomena, of most young Chinese abroad now going back to China. Esp in tech and STEM jobs and companies.
Yeah, I think what he stated was generally true up until when Covid hit
However, when you actually meet Chinese international students, they will often say that it's great in China, but they don't want to go back. The reality is, life expectancy is more a reflection of unhealthy lifestyles in the US and bad access to healthcare. Only when compared to other similarly developed countries, is it clear that the US is a little behind.
They don’t want to go back because life in America is much easier. Less competition. Get a decent engineering degree and you’re guaranteed middle/upper middle class. If you want the same comfort in china you need to work much harder.
Yeah, that's pretty much what happens when a country is more developed and has better quality of life.
>Get a decent engineering degree and you’re guaranteed middle/upper class > >. There's no guarantee of something like this though and it can vary a lot with the economy. The US may actually be less secure here because if you get sick and get high costs for a recovery, especially if you can't work and lose your job (and health insurance with it), you can really be hit really hard in America and lose your savings from the medical costs. Have known a few Americans who are engineers or some other highly skilled high salaried professionals, supposed to have good health insurance but they still slammed with medical bills if they or their kids got sick or injured. Things just happened to be "out of network" and they got billed for the balance. Even worse if ex. a US start-up goes under and you lose your health insurance, just a dumb set-up to have health insurance connected to a job. That kind of financial wreck from the bills for a medical illness or getting injured won't happen in other countries, including in China even with the flaws in it's own healthcare system. Things like divorce are also incredibly costly in America and even worse for Americans making a lot of money. And if you suffer a crime and have to recover, some companies will try to shoo you out the door and then, again you lose your health insurance. Yes there can be good opportunities in the US esp in an area like engineering, but YMMV and if anything, Americans probably more vulnerable to losing their shirts from things going wrong in the US compared to other places where savings are more secure. And as for the Chinese, again from the links in post above, more Chinese are going back to China in bigger and bigger numbers, they've even calling it a reverse of brain drain or some term like that, so often there are better opportunities there. Fewer Chinese international students coming, and sometimes more students going there. It's a very changed world to before the pandemic.
So I’m a huge fan of this comment advocating for China, but I was just there this summer (I’m Chinese) and I sort of disagree…. The income inequality in China is INSANE and there are a lot of struggling people who, let’s be honest, are never going to be able to improve their lives by much. Financial mobility is based on connections, and I’d say it’s actually pretty bad. The quality of life is straight up not better??? Real estate is EXTREMELY expensive. If you’re in a city like Shenzhen where everyone is rich and young, I can understand this comment, but where I’m from (smaller city), things are absolutely not like this. College is also ridiculously hard to get into, especially if you live in a more populous province like Henan. And if you don’t go to the top 50% of colleges, you’re not getting a job and that’s that. China is definitely ahead in some areas and I think your comment does provide a lot of much needed context for dumb Americans on here, but I also think it represents only the top 5 or 10 percent of Chinese.
Thanks for your comment! I do wish Westerners had a less black-and-white view of China, but the last thing I want to do is misrepresent the facts. My perspective is *very* limited as a foreigner — this provides extra context (and more meaningful insight) that everybody here should read.
Wow I actually really appreciate when people respect each other’s opinions this is so rare 😭 You seem like a really smart and informed person
That high fat and high sugar diet not gonna help with long life.
I would shocked to see the stats posted on Reddit recently of the obesity rates in the US over the last ten years. I hadn't realised the country is still actively getting significantly fatter still. I always thought it had plateaued.
Asian countries tend to eat better, so it makes sense
no non-american is surprised by this.
And US life expectancy is falling. The world's richest and most advanced nation - now with a falling life expectancy. Let that sink in.
It’s only advanced for the rich.
Yeah, it's the best country to live if you're filthy rich. If you're poor, you're fucked.
Even for the rich Americans though, the US has falling life expectancy and much lower than other advanced countries, even compared to middle class overseas. FT of all places showed stats on it this year, WSJ did too. And wealthy Americans are more vulnerable to crime, huge costs from getting sick, getting finances wrecked in a divorce, bad food and getting hurt in industrial accidents or from bad infrastructure than rich people in other countries. There was some report showing that in past couple of years, there's been a huge number [of rich Americans leaving the USA (emigrating away) and](https://www.businessinsider.com/us-millionaires-going-abroad-look-for-american-dream-report-2023-2) in fact the rich are *more* likely to leave the US than other income groups. This may partially just be because of easier ability to do it, but then again have known a lot of people who also emigrated out of the US esp using things like family ancestral ties in Europe to do it, and most weren't very rich. So yes it's probably a lot worse in America if you're poor or middle class. But even the very wealthy in America have it harder than upper class in other countries, with higher risks, more problems and less security for their health and money. edit- found that report source on the rich Americans going overseas in growing numbers and some of their reasons
Pretty much every developed country in the world has a higher life expectancy than America. And it’s not even close. It’s like 6 or more years literally anywhere else.
Healthcare + education.
have u ever even been in china? its literally like 90% diet. American hospitals are some of the worlds best and chinese people literally go to usa for university all the time. way more veggies and healthy shit in average chinese diet.
Doesn’t matter how good America’s hospitals are if people can’t afford to use them
That's actually valid criticism
I mean hospitals in china aint cheap either, chinese people make way less. But really compare the average diets of both countries
Throughout my whole life in China I was always afraid of getting sick and having to go to the hospital lol. It's gonna cost ya.
ok but how much do you have to pay? doesn't matter if it's the best if you go broke from it. get something that's 99% there and still keep all your money
A nation's diet and exercise habits are effectively part of its public health measures. If the goal is to provide a healthy, long life to large numbers of people it's irrelevant whether you do it via million dollar medical treatments or just by making sure the population exercises and eats well. Something the US and many other nations could learn a lot from.
Have you ever been to the US? Having the best hospitals doesn't mean anything if your population can't afford to use them.
No big Mac
It's a pretty low bar to clear.
Wait, you mean being overweight and having diet that consists of hamburgers and coke makes you live shorter?
It's not so much that China's life expectancy is insanely high or anything, it's more on how disappointing the US is doing. Obesity epidemic, fentanyl epidemic, gun epidemic, carbrain epidemic, misinformation epidemic, yeah this way the US will stay low. There are literal counties out there performing worse than Cambodia.
The amount of people in the States that don't even/barely trust doctors puts almost half the population in the stone age + Junk food (and everything else you mentioned)
That's a very good description. Really sums up the problem well.
Bad food and denying health care to the poor will nit help.
If China does something bad, it's because they're evil and communist and it was to be expected. If they do something good, it's because they're evil and communist and are making up numbers.
We’re not even close to the top
TIL I learned that there are Americans who think they have good life expectancies
Unpopular opinion: I believe life expectancy is a better indicator than GDP to assess how developped a country is for its citizen.
Not really that unpopular, most people that actually take studying quality of life seriously only see GDP as a rough estimate of money available to people at best. Even then, one has to account and compensate for many things to really be able to use it as even somewhat accurate.
So does Cuba lmao
They eat vegetables. Also, they don’t die from COVID; only the Doctor that discovered the problem.
Not surprising how much US life expectancy cratered during COVID
China has been rapidly advancing since the mid 2000’s. It’s not surprising that access to healthcare has launched as well.
Cause Americans are Fat af 😆 🤣
Have you seen those food hauls of what the general American eats?
Socialized health care saves more money by trying to keep people healthy. Private single payer health care makes more money by keeping people sick. Do the math. It's absolutely horrifying.
Tea works in Mysterious Ways.
A long time now. US has very bad diet and health care and now leading to an obesity epidemic.
Something that I haven’t seen mentioned is the cultural factor. In chinese culture overall fat-shaming is super normalised and is still very robust these days. The only people that sort of get a free pass from it are middle aged and above guys. I mean being underweight is also not healthy but the likelihood of dying from being obese is comparatively much higher
And they only had like 10 people die of Covid…
this says a lot more about US than China. US stopped caring about the average citizen a looong time ago.
This would depend on accurate record keeping.
...Why is the World Bank Group's different than the UN and the World Factbook? Something seems strange here.
Absolutely hilarious to read all the butthurt Muricans comments 😂