Advertisement
Opinion
Why so many young Chinese are depressed – and how Beijing can help
- The rise of youth depression owes much to China’s rigid education system, the loneliness of only children and tight rural-urban migration restrictions
- Centrally planned schooling, along with migration restrictions that mean millions of children are left behind in rural areas, should be done away with
3-MIN READ3-MIN
3
Nancy Qian, professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, is a co-director of Northwestern University’s Global Poverty Research Lab and the founding director of China Econ Lab.
China’s high youth unemployment rate and increasingly disillusioned young people – many of whom are “giving up” on work – have attracted much attention from global media outlets and Chinese policymakers. The standard narrative is to associate the problem with the country’s recent growth slowdown. In fact, the issue goes much deeper.
The rise of youth depression has been decades in the making, and owes much to China’s rigid education system, past fertility policies and tight migration restrictions. Chinese youth are burned out from spending their childhood and adolescence engaged in ceaseless, intense study. Attending a good university is seen as necessary for securing a good job; and for rural children, a university degree is the only path to legal residence in cities under the hukou registration system.
As if the pressure to get into a university wasn’t bad enough, the rigid structure of the school system makes matters worse. After nine years of compulsory schooling, children must pass an exam to enter an academic high school, and only 50 per cent of them are allowed to pass. Teenagers who don’t make the cut attend vocational high school and are destined for low-paying jobs.
Select Voice
Select Speed
1x
AI-generated voice