Pacifying pessimistic China’s Gen Z, which faces near-record youth unemployment and some of the slowest economic growth in nearly half a century, presents a policymaking challenge for President Xi Jinping.
SHANGHAI — The first weekend after coronavirus disease 2019 restrictions ended last month, dozens of young Chinese jostled in the dark at a heavy-metal concert in a tiny Shanghai music venue that reeked of sweat and hard liquor.
This generation is the most pessimistic of all age groups in China, surveys show. While the protests succeeded in hastening the end of COVID curbs, the hurdles Chinese youth face in achieving better living standards will be harder to overcome, some analysts say. There is no data on how many Chinese are inclined towards those perspectives. Brewing under the surface before the protests, however, was one unifying factor: growing discontent with their perceived economic prospects.
“It’s educated pessimism. It’s based on the facts and the reality that they’re witnessing,” said Zak Dychtwald, founder of research firm Young China Group, which examines trends among Chinese youth, of the mood among young adults. “A nation will prosper only when its young people thrive,” Mr. Xi said, without elaborating on potential policies.Instead, analysts say Chinese policymakers need to create well-paid jobs for young people and ensure they thrive economically, like their parents’ generation, who accepted limited freedoms in exchange for promised prosperity.
For all the government’s talk about “common prosperity”, leveling the playing field for this new generation seems impossible, said Fang Xu, an urban sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
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