作者：马群     

编辑：冯仍 校对：冯仍 翻译：周敏

5月9日，内地网红教授郑强表示：“大学生就业难，我不承认！不是找不到工作，而是满意、轻松的工作有点难找。大学刚毕业，不要太挑剔，先吃点苦不行吗？”对此，不少网友反驳称：“工作确实不难找，但996却只给3000元一个月，我连抱怨都不行吗？”许多年轻人认为，如今中国的就业环境，早已不是一句“先吃苦”就能够解释的。

在今天的中国，一个普通家庭培养一名大学生的成本越来越高。从小学到大学，补习班、学区房、生活费、学费，以及各种人情与教育压力层层叠加。很多家庭为了供孩子读大学，几乎倾尽积蓄。许多年轻人自己也长期承受巨大的学习压力，希望通过高考和大学改变命运，但现实却越来越令人失望。

《城市梦想破碎的瞬间 》图片由AI生成

不少大学生毕业后发现，所谓“学历改变命运”，正在逐渐失效。很多人找不到专业对口的工作，甚至不得不去做外卖、快递、直播销售等低门槛行业。并不是这些职业不值得尊重，而是很多年轻人会产生一种巨大的落差感：“我寒窗苦读十几年，最终为什么还是只能做一份随时可能被替代的工作？”

更令人焦虑的是，中国大学生的就业环境正在持续恶化。

如今，本科生已经明显“贬值”，研究生人数快速增加。可即便如此，很多硕士毕业后依然很难找到理想工作。一边是每年上千万毕业生持续涌入就业市场，另一边却是大量企业缩减招聘、降薪裁员。

许多岗位甚至出现了明显的“学历通胀”现象：过去本科可以胜任的工作，现在要求硕士；过去大专可以从事的岗位，如今也要求本科。而真正的问题在于：高学历人才越来越多，但高质量岗位并没有同步增加。

与此同时，中国职场还长期存在一个被广泛诟病的问题——“35岁门槛”。很多企业默认认为，35岁以上员工“成本高、难管理、加班能力下降”。于是，大量中年劳动者在最需要稳定收入的年龄，反而面临裁员与就业歧视。

这意味着，很多年轻人不仅现在找工作困难，甚至连未来都能够提前看到：拼命读书、拼命工作，最后依然可能在35岁之后被职场边缘化。

于是，当越来越多人开始“躺平”，问题就不仅仅只是个人选择，而是整个社会对未来信心的下降。

年轻人真正害怕的，从来不是吃苦，而是：吃了一辈子的苦，却依然无法获得稳定、体面与希望。

如果一个社会让年轻人长期看不到回报，那么学历焦虑、就业焦虑、生育率下降以及“躺平文化”，都会不断扩大。因为当“努力”不再能够改变命运时，人们自然会开始怀疑：这一切究竟还有什么意义。

When Chinese Youth Increasingly See No Future

Author: Ma Qun

Editor: Feng Reng Proofreader: Feng Reng Translator: Zhou Min

On May 9, mainland celebrity professor Zheng Qiang stated: “I do not admit that it is difficult for college students to find employment! It is not that jobs cannot be found, but that satisfying and easy jobs are a bit difficult to find. Just after graduating from university, don’t be too picky; isn’t it okay to endure some hardship first?”

In response, many netizens countered, saying: “Jobs are indeed not hard to find, but when ‘996’ (working 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week) only pays 3,000 yuan a month, am I not even allowed to complain?” Many young people believe that today’s employment environment in China can no longer be explained by a simple phrase like “endure hardship first.”

In today’s China, the cost for an ordinary family to raise a college student is getting higher and higher. From primary school to university, tutoring classes, school district housing, living expenses, tuition, and various social obligations and educational pressures are layered one upon another. Many families nearly exhaust their savings to support their children through university. Many young people themselves have long endured immense academic pressure, hoping to change their destiny through the College Entrance Examination (Gaokao) and university, but reality is becoming increasingly disappointing.

[Image: The Moment City Dreams Shatter (AI Generated)]

Many college students find after graduation that the so-called “education changes destiny” is gradually losing its efficacy. Many people cannot find jobs matching their majors and even have to work in low-threshold industries such as food delivery, courier services, or livestream sales. It is not that these professions are not worth respecting, but rather that many young people experience a massive sense of disparity: “After studying hard by the cold window for over a decade, why can I ultimately only do a job that could be replaced at any time?”

Even more anxiety-inducing is that the employment environment for Chinese college students is continuously deteriorating.

Nowadays, undergraduate degrees have clearly “depreciated,” and the number of graduate students is increasing rapidly. Yet even so, many people still find it difficult to obtain ideal jobs after graduating with a master’s degree. On one side, over ten million graduates continue to flood into the job market every year; on the other side, a large number of enterprises are shrinking recruitment, cutting salaries, and laying off staff.

Many positions even exhibit an obvious phenomenon of “credential inflation”: jobs that undergraduates could handle in the past now require a master’s degree; positions that junior college students could hold in the past now require a bachelor’s degree. The real problem lies in the fact that while high-level talent is increasing, high-quality positions have not increased synchronously.

At the same time, the Chinese workplace has long suffered from a widely criticized issue—the “35-year-old threshold.” Many companies default to the belief that employees over 35 have “high costs, are difficult to manage, and have a declining ability to work overtime.” Consequently, a large number of middle-aged workers face layoffs and employment discrimination at the very age when they most need a stable income.

This means that many young people not only find it difficult to get jobs now, but can even see their future in advance: studying desperately, working desperately, and yet still potentially being marginalized by the workplace after the age of 35.

Therefore, when more and more people begin to “lie flat” (tang ping), the issue is no longer just a personal choice, but a decline in the entire society’s confidence in the future.

What young people truly fear has never been “eating bitterness” (enduring hardship), but rather: having eaten bitterness for a lifetime, yet still being unable to obtain stability, dignity, and hope.

If a society causes young people to see no return over the long term, then education anxiety, employment anxiety, declining birth rates, and “lying flat culture” will all continue to expand. Because when “effort” can no longer change one’s destiny, people will naturally begin to wonder: what is the meaning of all this after all.