Yes and no. This is changing as people become more prosperous and can afford old age homes. Multi-generational homes are still common, but less so than they were a decade or two decades ago.

The primary issue these days with grandparents taking care of kids is that for many people the jobs are no longer nearby, but in neighboring provinces. Parents leave for years at a time, only returning during the Fall and Chinese New Year breaks. It puts a lot of pressure on the older folks.

In my mind China will be resilient less so because of how families work, and more because of the investments they're making with regard to automation and an expansion of social welfare policies.

> Children will take care of their parents in old age ... Chinese Grandparents take care of children while the parents are working

Indian families are also similar, but never before (at least in India) so many young people have to work away from their home (normally some small town). This puts enormous pressure on young, double income couples in cities.

European and American families do this too.

Do they? American families don’t really do this in statistically significant numbers, I’d expect. No idea about Europe.

Sure they do, as soon a you leave the UMC bubble where nursing homes seem affordable. It's more common in recent immigrants, but 25% of the US population is 2nd-generation or more recent.

> in China. Children will take care of their parents in old age.

Let me rephrase that so it's clearer:

"in China. Children MUST take care of their parents 100% FINANCIALLY in old age."

Because of the former one-child policy, that means you're it.

This is a problem for the Chinese military and police, because if you're a one-child, you're very risk averse.

This is seen in Chinese police allowing people to drown instead of even getting their feet wet.

"Chinese police and onlookers watch a girl drown"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz83kFZf_CA

How does this work with people having a single child?

This might have been feasible in the past, with multiple children, but now, the woman becomes part of her husband's family or vice versa so(but I presume the former, since having a daughter is so undesirable in China), 50% of the parents get the short stick?

The libertarian leaning policies of the USA have already started to create a low birth rate. The first affected generation doesn't have time to realize that they will be worse off than their parents, and so has 2-3 children without realizing that they will be unable to afford to educate or provide healthcare.

Those children then grow up seeing the hardships and stress of their parents, who complain about how expensive they were and now they won't be able to retire and decide to either wait for things to get better before having children or not to have any at all.

Then the elder statesmen complain about low birth rates.

Until the United States creates policies so that someone who works 40 hours a week, regardless of the job, will be able to retire and afford healthcare, only the top 10% of earners ($150k+) and the extreme poor (medicaid, food stamps, subsidized housing) will have more than 1 child.