Beijing [China], July 14 : The attitude of Chinese youth towards marriage, dating, and bearing children has become a worrisome issue for the Chinese government, Asia Times reported.
Earlier on June 15, the National Bureau of the Statistics Spokesperson Fu Linghui said that six million people between 16 and 24 were still searching for jobs. In addition, there are about 11.6 million fresh graduates, who will soon enter the job markets.
And the figure takes into account only till the age 24, but many persons in their 30s have been suffering from unstable income, as per Asia Times.
Asia Times is a Hong Kong-based English-language news outlet.
Some of these people now refer to themselves as the youth of “four nos,” no interest in dating, getting married, buying a home or having a child, a trending term on the internet in China.
“A lot of people expect their partners to be homeowners, but property prices are really too high,” a 30-year-old man said in an interview with a video channel.
“It’s not that I did not work hard – my hard work did not produce good results,” he says, adding that he has worked for a small food delivery firm in Beijing since 2020 but is owed 20,000 yuan (USD 2,791) in service fees. A decade ago he could afford to date but now he can’t, he says, – and if he has children, they will suffer in this world.
The video was originally posted on a channel called “Under the Moonlight” on Bilibili, a Shanghai-based video-sharing website, in April. It was then blocked. It is still available on social media overseas.
Some young Chinese adopted a “lying flat” attitude a few years ago as they were suffocated by the societal pressures upon them to overwork and over-achieve in order to buy homes and have families. Now many are suffering from unemployment or unstable income and want to be free from financial burdens, reported Asia Times.
The Communist Youth League of Guangzhou City issued the document reading that the recent survey interviewing 15,501 college students and young workers found that 1,215, or 8 per cent showed characteristics of having the “four nos” attitude. It called on all parties in society to try to change these youngsters’ attitudes into “four wants.”
This came after the National Bureau of Statistics said on June 15 that the unemployment rate of people aged between 16 and 24 in China’s urban areas had reached 20.8 per cent while that of those aged between 25 and 59 was 4.1 per cent in May.
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Finance and Banking said in a report on Tuesday that many highly-educated young people could not find proper jobs as the property, internet and tutorial sectors have been hurt by the government’s regulatory rules in recent years.
Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs announced last month that a total of 6.83 million couples got married in 2022, a decrease of about 800,000 couples from 2021. The 2022 figure is also the lowest since 1986, according to Asia Times.
This figure shows that the marriage rate in the country has declined. As per the data, since 2014, the rate is in decline. It fell gradually from 13.47 million couples in 2013 to 9.47 million in 2019, and further down to 7.64 million in 2021.
A Chinese writer says in an article published on Wednesday that the Communist Youth League in Guangzhou wants young people to have a “four wants” spirit but he thinks chanting slogans is not helpful. He says it’s important for the government to understand why young people have a pessimistic sentiment.
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