China's Generation Z: When Persistence Slogans Don't Work

2024-05-27 08:42:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The numbers break records once again: in June, almost twelve million young Chinese will complete their university studies. It is double the figure of ten years ago and with an economy showing signs of weakness.

This is perhaps one of the reasons why the numbers continue to break records: never before have so many young people applied for positions in the civil service. There are an estimated nine million people across the country who want to be police officers or tax officials, for example.

In Beijing, a 23-year-old graduating this summer who has also applied for a civil service position says: "I feel like everything is very uncertain now and everyone wants to find some security."

There are not enough jobs for many well-educated people in China. How about this young woman from Shanghai who has lived in Europe. She returned from England with a master's degree in marketing and then did not find a job for a year despite searching intensely "I thought there would be a lot of work in China, but no, the situation is not like that".

Youth unemployment hit record levels of more than 20% last summer. The authorities then changed the calculation method and the quota is now just under 15%. The new figures were met with great disbelief online in China.

The promise of well-being is no longer fulfilled

Chinese youth are experiencing a period of transition in which, suddenly, old promises no longer apply. All you have to do is work hard enough and you will be rewarded – that was the promise for a long time. And the Communist Party's agreement with the people was: we will provide welfare, for this you will keep your mouth shut.

China's Generation Z: When Persistence Slogans Don't Work

But what happens when the agreement is no longer fulfilled?

Inconsistency between realities

Uncertainty and discontent are clearly visible. Although almost all content that the Communist Party does not like is usually deleted from social networks with lightning speed, there are always signs of a clear discrepancy between the reality of the youth and the ideal world of the regime. For example, when posts go viral in which young people symbolize that all the hard work is no longer worth it and that they would rather stay at home in bed.

Or when they describe slightly sarcastic ideas about freedom when you earn almost nothing: no insurance, no children, no mortgage. This is not at all what the Communist Party wants. She wants ambitious young people, despite everything, and many children born, at a time when the birth rate has fallen.

There are government programs that send young people to work as teachers or doctors in remote regions, for example. Where most want to leave.

Other values ??spread

In recent decades, millions of people in China have escaped poverty and become part of the middle class. Today, a generation of parents often have to take care of their grown children who are out of work.

There are also more and more young people who no longer dream of material success, who go in search of meaning and question everything, for example in one of the retreats like Dali, in the mountains of Yunnan, southwest China.

And there are those who publicly defended their values ??for the first time in their lives a year and a half ago, in protests against the restrictive Zero-Covid policy, which were also directed against oppression and censorship.

Although the surveillance state has tried to intimidate people on a large scale through arrests and interrogations and has erased all memories of the demonstrations on the protected wall of the Internet, the experience remains - for the relatively small group that was there.

It is the perfectly normal occurrences of life that perhaps best express the state of mind of "Generation Z": a 27-year-old financial expert who had to cope with odd jobs in Beijing for a year because he could not find nothing suitable. He says the one phrase that certainly applies to many people: "Currently there are no plans for my future".

"A Phase of Confusion"

Xiang Biao is a social anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute in Halle and analyzes China's "Generation Z": what is changing in their thoughts and actions? He is like a pop star for Chinese youth. An interview with him received more than 30 million hits on the Chinese network. He says: "Right now we are going through a phase of confusion, of reflection. It is a phase of rethinking the meaning of life."

In other words, a very insecure generation is growing up. According to Xiang Biao, the KP's tenacity motto still works for a significant number of young people. "Many young people can still survive, because they support their families. The question is: if after ten years the family can no longer do this, because the situation has not improved: what will happen then?"/ DW