Youth of China in the New Era
Growing with the internet. The internet has profoundly shaped the current generation, and the current generation has also influenced the internet.
At the end of 2020, the number of netizens aged 6 to 18 reached 180 million in China, with the internet available to 94.9 percent of minors, and the gap in internet accessibility between cities and rural areas narrowed to 0.3 percentage point from 5.4 percentage points in 2018. The internet has become the "sixth sense" of contemporary young people and part of their lives, and offers them a space to grow.
Along with rapid popularization of the internet, more and more young people are using the internet to access information, exchange ideas, make friends, and shop, and their ways of learning, living and working are changing profoundly. Young people make up the majority of the users of short online videos, live-streaming viewers, and ride-hailing customers. As they become the main producers of information, consumers of services, and promoters of technologies related to cyberspace, they are exerting a tremendous influence on internet trends. In a complex online environment, young people are spreading positive energy and shaping new social trends in an effort to ensure a clean cyberspace.
(2) More Opportunities to Fulfill Potential
Only when the country prospers can its young people prosper. With rapid economic and social development, young people in China in the new era have access to better opportunities for development and a growing stage on which to fulfill their potential.
Equal access to education. Young people in China enjoy more equal and higher-quality educational opportunities as the country continues giving high priority to education. In 2021, the completion rate of compulsory education in China reached 95.4 percent, the gross enrollment rate in senior secondary education reached 91.4 percent, and the gross enrollment rate in higher education reached 57.8 percent, with 44.3 million students on campus, ranking first in the world. More and more young people have stepped onto this important path to success and excellence.
The country has established and been improving the system of financial aid to students, which offers full coverage from preschool to postgraduate education. By 2020, subsidies had totaled over 240 billion yuan and assisted nearly 150 million students, achieving full coverage from preschool education, compulsory education, and senior secondary education to undergraduate and postgraduate education, across public and privately-run schools, and for all students from families with financial difficulties. The right of particular groups to receive compulsory education and their interests have been well protected, including children living in cities with their parents who are migrant workers, and students from rural and poor areas. In 2020, 85.8 percent of children living in cities with migrant worker parents studied in public schools or filled the slots purchased by the government in privately-run schools. From 2012 to 2021, more than 820,000 students from rural and poor areas were enrolled in key universities through special enrollment plans. More young people have thus been granted equal opportunities to receive better education, which prevents poverty from passing down from one generation to the next.
Diverse career options. The career choices of young people in China are increasingly diverse and market-oriented, and made, more often than not, on their own. Young people now look beyond a stable lifelong job in the traditional sense, and non-public economic entities and new social organizations are gradually becoming their main channels for employment. The options of "either workers or farmers" are a thing of the past, and the tertiary industry has become an important gathering place for the young workforce. In 2020, the tertiary industry employed 47.7 percent of those in employment across the country, up 13.1 percentage points from a decade ago. In particular, new and rapidly-rising industries and new business forms have given birth to a large number of new career options, such as esports players, live-streaming hosts, and web writers, and engaged a large number of young people in flexible employment, such as parcel and food couriers. There have emerged what they call "Slash" people with multiple titles, jobs, and ways of working and living. All these have testified to the greater range of opportunities and choices available to young people as times change.
