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China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

economist.com

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Re: China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

#41

Post by apsec112 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #26
NhanH wrote: post #22

The article mostly focuses on educated youth and white collar jobs (though it does touch on blue collar). But why would they start with an example of someone making less than half the average income of Chinese (about 10000 yuan iirc)? Sure, if you are in the bottom 25% of income, things will look bleak. I am not saying that is not the issue, but the article is not about that topic.

There's a lot more people in the bottom 25% of income than in the top 25%. Do they not matter?

There are the same number of people in the bottom and top quartiles, by definition

Re: China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

#42

Post by jjoonathan »

ReptileMan wrote: post #27
mkl95 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China kinda owns the Western teen ideology via TikTok. They can make them feel defeated at any time.

Western teen and millennials are perfectly capable to do that on their own. It was us millennials that elevated grievance politics and cry-bulling into an art form. From the moment I turned 18 it was continuous barrage of news how fucked up everything is.

We didn't start the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning.

Re: China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

#43

Post by jfengel »

ReptileMan wrote: post #27
mkl95 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China kinda owns the Western teen ideology via TikTok. They can make them feel defeated at any time.

Western teen and millennials are perfectly capable to do that on their own. It was us millennials that elevated grievance politics and cry-bulling into an art form. From the moment I turned 18 it was continuous barrage of news how fucked up everything is.

Funny. From my perspective, it was we Boomers who responded to everything that the younger generations did as if it were a great grievance against us. We fought, and still fight, bitterly against a ton of things that just don't affect us, usually "for the children".

(I am strictly Gen X but when they say "ok Boomer" I know they mean me too.)

Re: China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

#44

Post by lolinder »

fullshark wrote: post #24
glitchc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education, however, consistently leads to better outcomes. White collar workers are doing well across the country (US). Forget about tech, accountants, HR professionals, economists, risk analysts, project managers, etc. are all doing well. It's predominantly the un- and under-educated that are being left behind.

Unless of course you took out massive student loans for that education and failed to study an employable skill, those silly 18 year olds, not able to understand the shifting labor market and make sensible 30 year predictions on what skills will be desired.

It's not a matter of predicting the labor market, it's a matter of understanding debt. There are very few possible job markets where the kind of debt we're talking about makes any kind of sense. What's missing in our high school education is any form of basic financial literacy.

It's still unfair to blame the kids (technically, brand-new adults) for the system's failure to teach them, but you don't have to be an oracle to predict that $100k in student loans isn't going to pay for itself when compared to a comparable degree from a lesser-known school for $32k.

Re: China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

#46

Post by barbazoo »

booleandilemma wrote: post #4

Is China writing articles like this about the UK/US? I feel like there's plenty of material.

You could write that about much of the western world I would assume. At least add Canada, and most of Europe to that list from what I can tell.

Re: China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

#47

Post by WillPostForFood »

booleandilemma wrote: post #4

Is China writing articles like this about the UK/US? I feel like there's plenty of material.

China Daily is the state owned english language news in China. They have plenty to say about the US economy.

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202308/03/WS64cb948ca3103526...

Re: China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

#48

Post by nxisnosb »

fullshark wrote: post #24
glitchc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education, however, consistently leads to better outcomes. White collar workers are doing well across the country (US). Forget about tech, accountants, HR professionals, economists, risk analysts, project managers, etc. are all doing well. It's predominantly the un- and under-educated that are being left behind.

Unless of course you took out massive student loans for that education and failed to study an employable skill, those silly 18 year olds, not able to understand the shifting labor market and make sensible 30 year predictions on what skills will be desired.

And not to forget the amount of "follow your passion" that's thrown around with almost never mentioning employability or earning potential or practical long term outcomes. Now, that leads to an 18 year old picking Egyptian heiroglyphics as his focus and then realizes that he/she has a lot of debt but that the field doesn't employ as many people as accountants. Granted a 18 year old should have known this but a mistake at 18 shouldn't have such long lasting and serious consequences.

Re: China’s defeated youth: Young Chinese have little hope for the future

#50

Post by dustincoates »

EarthIsHome wrote: post #45

[flagged]

> Have you talked to any young people in the West lately? Do you even know WTF is going on in your own countries?

Okay, I'm not super skilled on my fallacies, but this seems like a tu quoque, no? Western youth disillusionment doesn't preclude Chinese youth disillusionment, unless you see it as a zero sum competition.

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