Decoded China Series: Automation and Pension Geography (full note, PDF)

Decoded, China series. Driss EFFINA, PhD. October 2026. PDF, 30 pages, 10 tables.

How do employment changes alter where pension receipts and claims sit? the author reconciles official Chinese pension accounts, including Jilin’s 2023-2024 pooling bridge, long-run robot installation context, current retirement reform and actual January-August 2026 partials. An original exposed experiment follows 10,000 January 1985 men, with contributions, payer-specific wage indices, portability cash, basic and personal-account pensions, estates and marginal risk sharing. The central labor path lowers current contributions 6.4%, yet included promises fall more in present value. Provincial and national signs differ; formal jobs, residence-only movement, complete marginal pooling and valuation changes supply explicit counterexamples. The complete PDF includes 16 figures, 10 tables, exact derivations, provenance and clickable references. Cash balances are not actuarial solvency; synthetic labor responses are not estimated automation effects. An improved fund ledger is not a welfare gain from smaller worker claims. Format: English downloadable PDF, exactly 30 pages. Author: the author. Evidence cutoff: 23 October 2026. Price: USD 29, one-time purchase.

Inside the full note:

• Jilin’s cash improvement is largely a pooling bridge
• A synthetic cohort makes every labor assumption visible
• The current contribution loss has an exact threshold
• Receipts fall, but the included promises fall further
• Complete marginal pooling removes the provincial increment
• An improved fund ledger is not a welfare gain