Earlier this year, a senior communications executive at Baidu praised China’s brutal work culture, sparking a public backlash and ultimately forcing him to resign, reigniting debate about the dire situation facing China’s young people. With worsening job prospects and growing uncertainty, there is a steadily growing sense that success is unattainable for most, and even if it does occur, unsustainable.
As a result, some idiosyncratic trends have emerged. For example, the widely written idea of ”lying flat” emerged in 2021 as embodying the philosophy of doing the bare minimum to get out of the system, or even quitting and moving away from big cities to live a slow life. Additionally, phrases like “don’t buy property, don’t buy a car, don’t get married, don’t have kids, don’t consume” have also become popular. More recently, young people have taken to imitating birds on social media to symbolize their desire to be free from worries (“If I can’t get a job after graduation, I might as well be a bird”).
But the reasons behind this trend go far beyond burnout, rejection of the work environment, or even simple laziness.
To understand today’s urban youth and find appropriate solutions, it is necessary to take a step back and look at China’s broader socio-economic context. Over the past few decades, China’s economy has grown at an astounding rate as reforms since 1978 transformed the economy. In 2010, just before today’s young generation entered universities and the job market, China’s annual GDP growth rate was still 10.6%. With millions of Chinese seeing their hard work thrive, from workers sending remittances home to entrepreneurial spirits blossoming, anything seemed possible.
This economic miracle gave rise to a highly structured view of success that was easy to prescribe and follow. For those hoping to live a better life than their parents, the ideal path was clearly outlined: years of rigorous preparation for the “gaokao” (China’s final high school exam that determines college admissions), admission to a top university, followed by a white-collar job, an apartment, and a romantic partner in China’s top city. Hard work and “struggle” were believed to provide a surefire path to stability, success, and happiness.
This is the reality our parents grew up with and the dominant maxim that today’s young people continue to be raised on – even though the circumstances have changed dramatically. GDP growth has become increasingly normalized since 2010 (slightly above 5% in 2023), and recent events such as global instability and the pandemic, combined with domestic factors such as increasing state control over the economy and a sluggish real estate sector (once a major driver of economic growth), are further impacting this economic situation.
With so many highly educated college graduates, competition for top jobs has become incredibly fierce. At the same time, labor markets have become less flexible, leading to rising youth unemployment and layoffs in historically popular fields such as technology, many foreign companies, and banking. Overall, income inequality has risen and is at its highest level since official records began in 1985.
This dynamic, along with the realization that in today’s climate, struggle is no longer a guarantee of success, nor is it escapable, has led to growing tensions. Years of government rhetoric encouraging people to pursue prosperity have equipped China’s youth with an unshakeable mindset of always striving to “level up.” At the same time, they are beginning to realize that this “leveling up” does not actually translate into progress.
This predicament is best captured in the popular word “neijuan” (degeneration), a term borrowed from anthropology that, in this context, describes a busyness without progress, “a never-ending cycle of self-flagellation, the feeling of running in place.” The word has been used to describe everything from finances to motherhood, becoming a catchphrase for all manner of suffering. Having ranked in the top 10 most popular internet slang in 2020, “neijuan” is experiencing another resurgence, with a spike in use in the second quarter of 2024.
The debate over “neihuan” suggests that Chinese youth are not becoming passive or resigned, but rather are trying to do their best within a rigid and often unforgiving structure. For example, a recent youth panel in Shanghai conducted by market research firm Inner Chapter found that self-improvement remains a top priority for young people. The survey, conducted across generations in a multi-tiered city, revealed that Gen Z spends more time on personal interests (33%) and self-improvement (31%) than on time spent with friends (22%) and partners (15%). Self-improvement is also Gen Z’s top future focus area in the next six months (35%). However, those same Gen Z participants also listed happiness as their most important value, highlighting the tension between continuous progress and the need for leisurely enjoyment.
Traditionally, some balance might have been achieved by landing a government job or other high-paying white-collar job that guaranteed steady career progression and gave you the space to think about other things, but as that prescribed path becomes less stable, young people must find their own ways to achieve balance and a quality life.
One example is the exodus of young people from first-tier cities to lower-tier cities, where the costs of both living and doing business are more manageable. Trendy cafes, restaurants and other businesses are proliferating as young people bring their global lifestyle back to their hometowns.
For example, “What and three” is a cafe opened by a 24-year-old in Heze, a third-tier city in Shandong Province. The owner shared his own success story on social media to encourage young people to start their own businesses. “I was 24 and had no job, but I opened a shop and earned 60,000 yen a month,” he declared in a video on Xiaohongshu.
Similarly, young people are turning to “self-media” (personally-run social accounts with self-produced content, such as vlogs and short videos on Douyin) to combine their passions, leisure and work/income. As of 2021, there are 9.7 million people engaged in self-media full-time or part-time in China.
While these coping mechanisms are helping Chinese youth navigate the current situation, failure to address the fundamental contradiction between the dominant model of success and the reality of many Chinese youth will have negative consequences for China. Developing a resilient, capable, and creative workforce is key to Xi Jinping’s vision of China becoming a self-reliant science and technology powerhouse.
The government’s response to these trends has been dismissive at best, urging people to continue “struggle” to achieve prosperity. In 2021, for example, one party newspaper stated that “struggle has always been the brightest base color of young people” and noted that “choosing ‘calmness’ is not only unjust but shameful.”
Instead of denigrating the blues among China’s young people, public authorities should find ways to support them and harness their incredible creative potential. Cities such as Chengdu, for example, are leveraging their reputation as creative and coffee shop hubs. Unresolved these contradictions will only increase tensions and social stress, and raise the incidence of psychological problems such as anxiety and depression.
The same can be said about companies. Surveying the plight of China’s youth today, it is clear that the ex-Baidu executive’s enthusiastic attitude is outdated. Instead of firing talented young workers, companies should support and nurture their teams. And where social structures are inadequate, there is an opportunity for companies to step up. They can sponsor community learning clubs, hold competitions (entrepreneurial, sports, creative, etc.) to support young people’s ambitions, and give talented young people a platform, as well as promote key opinion leaders.
China’s young people are not passive or lazy. They want to improve themselves. They just need healthier paths, mentors and role models — a gap that companies can fill to truly connect with the next generation.
In conclusion, China’s young people face tense social contradictions between traditional models of success and current economic realities, leading to a struggle for balance in an unforgiving environment. To support young people and encourage innovation, China must address these contradictions and foster creativity and resilience. Lower-ranking cities may offer new opportunities, but broader structural change is needed. Recognizing and adapting to young people’s needs is critical to their well-being and the country’s future growth, ensuring a resilient and innovative workforce for years to come.
