It's Not Laziness, It's Math: Why China's Young People Are Giving Up on Marriage and Homeownership

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]If the young people of a country suddenly don't want to buy houses, don't want to get married, don't want to have children, and don't even want to buy new clothes, what do you think is happening to that country? This isn't science fiction, it's what's happening in China right now. Over the past few years, Chinese society has shown a series of surprising data shifts. The number of marriage registrations dropped from 13.47 million couples in 2013 to fewer than 7 million in 2023, basically cut in half. The number of newborns fell from 17.86 million in 2016 to 9.02 million in 2023. At the same time, young people's consumption views are also undergoing a radical transformation. They no longer buy luxury goods, they save as much as possible on travel, and cheaper substitute has become the most popular consumption keyword. Some say Chinese youth are lying flat tang ping, that they've lost their drive. But is that really the case? In this video, I'll help you understand three things. First, what does a low-desire society actually mean? It's not just about not consuming.

[00:01:06]Second, are China's low desire and Japan's low desire the same thing?

[00:01:10]The answer might surprise you. Third and most importantly, is low desire a disease or is it the optimal solution young people have found in the face of a brutal reality? After watching, you'll have a completely different understanding of this issue. The term low-desire society was originally coined by Japanese author Kenichi Ohmae. He used it to describe Japan's social state during the more than 20 years following the bursting of its economic bubble. He observed a phenomenon, Japanese young people had drastically reduced their pursuit of material goods. They didn't buy cars, didn't buy houses, didn't get married, didn't have much in savings, but they also barely spent anything.

[00:01:51]It's not that they couldn't afford to consume, they genuinely felt, "I don't need these things." You might think, "What's the problem with that? Isn't saving money a good thing?"

[00:02:00]The problem is that when an entire generation simultaneously lowers its consumption desire, the chain reaction it triggers is extremely far-reaching.

[00:02:09]Consumption decreases, corporate revenue falls, companies lay off workers or cut salaries, young people's income shrink further, and consumption continues to contract. This forms what economics classically calls a negative spiral.

[00:02:23]Japan calls it the three lost decades.

[00:02:26]So now the question is, is China heading down the same road? Don't jump to conclusions. Let's first look at what China's low desire concretely looks like.

[00:02:36]First, not buying houses. In the past in China, you need a house to have a home was practically a society-wide consensus. But now more and more young people have changed their attitude. It's not that they don't want to buy, it's that after doing the math, they realize that an apartment in a tier-one city might require 30 or even 40 years of not eating or drinking.

[00:02:59]When the gap between housing prices and income reaches a certain level, buying a house stops being a goal and becomes an illusion. Second, not getting married.

[00:03:09]I mentioned earlier that China's marriage registrations have nearly halved in 10 years. There are many reasons, but one core reason is that the total cost of marriage is too high.

[00:03:19]Bride price, marital house, wedding ceremony, raising children all stacked together, in many regions this adds up to a six or even seven-figure expense.

[00:03:28]For young people earning a few thousand yuan a month, this is simply a math problem. Third, not having kids. This is highly correlated with not getting married. The average cost of raising a child from birth through college graduation varies widely depending on the city, but it's universally an enormous long-term expense.

[00:03:48]Without significant income growth, this choice isn't surprising. Fourth, consumption downgrade. The rise of Pinduoduo, the popularity of the cheap substitute culture young people have started pursuing cost-effectiveness rather than brand. Luckin Coffee replacing Starbucks, military coats replacing down jackets. Behind these memes lies a real shift in consumption behavior. Fifth, social contraction.

[00:04:16]Many young people have begun reducing ineffective socializing, no longer enthusiastic about dinners and social obligations, and even barely posting on their social media circles.

[00:04:27]It's not that they don't socialize, they're concentrating their energy on a small number of relationships.

[00:04:33]You'll notice these five phenomena share a common feature. None of them is anger, it's a quiet withdrawal. Many people like to compare China with Japan. After Japan's bubble burst, young people lay flat too, isn't China the same now? But this analogy has a critical problem.

[00:04:50]Japan's low desire happened after its per capita GDP had already reached high-income country levels.

[00:04:56]In 1990, when Japan's economic bubble burst, Japan was already a highly developed with complete infrastructure and a mature social security system.

[00:05:06]Japanese youth not wanting was partly because their basic needs had long been satisfied. They were full and didn't want to eat anymore. But China's situation is different. China's per capita GDP is currently around 12,000 to 13,000 US dollars, having just crossed the middle-income threshold. Many young people aren't in the position of, "I have everything, so I don't want anything." They're in the position of, "I want it, but I can't reach it. So I'll just stop wanting." This is a very important distinction. To put it as an analogy, Japan's low desire is like someone who ate a tableful of delicious food and said, "I'm full." China's low desire is more like someone who looked at the prices on the menu and said, "I'm not hungry."

[00:05:51]Many people think low desire is a cultural choice that young people have let go. But the real situation may be that this is first and foremost an economic behavior. When the relationship between input and return becomes severely imbalanced, working hard but unable to afford a house, putting in overtime but seeing no promotion, rational people naturally reduce their input. This isn't a lack of ambition, it's cutting losses. There's a concept in economics called rational expectations. When people expect future returns to decline, they reduce their input now. What Chinese young people are doing fits exactly this logic. But if you think this is where the matter ends, that would be a truly dangerous misjudgment. Let's run a simulation. If China's low desire state isn't temporary but last 10 or 20 years, what will happen?

[00:06:39]Step one, consumption continues to shrink.

[00:06:43]Young people don't buy houses, don't get married, consume less, directly affecting real estate, retail, restaurants, weddings, education, and a whole series of other industries. These industries involve employed populations on the order of hundreds of millions.

[00:06:57]Step two, corporate revenue drops, the job market tightens. Insufficient consumption leads to falling corporate profits. Companies either lay off workers or compress salaries, hiring positions shrink, young people have a harder time finding work, and income expectations adjust further downward.

[00:07:14]Step three, the population structure ages at an accelerated rate. Not having children means the labor force keeps shrinking while the proportion of elderly keeps rising. The pressure on pensions and medical spending will keep increasing. Eventually, this pressure gets transferred to the young people who are still working.

[00:07:33]Step four, social vitality declines.

[00:07:37]When entrepreneurial willingness drops, when the spirit of risk-taking decreases, when people generally pursue stability and minimum cost living, the entire society's innovation capacity and economic resilience get weakened.

[00:07:53]The end result is a self-reinforcing cycle. The more depressed the economy, the lower young people's desire. The lower the desire, the harder it is for the economy to recover. The path Japan walked over the past 30 years clearly demonstrates how difficult this cycle is to break. This is what's truly worrying about low desire. It's not an event, it's a systemic trend. Once you enter this cycle, individual willpower alone can't reverse it. Now I'm going to share an opinion that might be controversial.

[00:08:21]We keep asking young people, "Why do you have low desire? How do we get you to recover your desire?"

[00:08:28]But maybe the direction of the question itself is wrong. Low desire isn't disease, it's a signal. A signal sent by the social system indicating that something is wrong with the incentive mechanism. Think about it. If an employee stops working actively, how do we analyze it? Is it the employee's attitude that's the problem, or is it the company's pay structure and promotion pipeline?

[00:08:50]When one person lies flat, you can call it an individual choice. But when an entire generation simultaneously makes similar choices, this is no longer an individual problem, it's a structural one. Actually, viewed from another angle, low desire also contains a kind of wisdom. Young people are, in their own way, lowering their cost of living and searching for new definitions of happiness, not chained to mortgages, not swept up by consumerism, not exhausting themselves to satisfy others' expectations. Some sociologists also point out that low desire doesn't necessarily mean low happiness.

[00:09:29]When a person actively chooses a simple life, they may actually gain higher quality free time and a better psychological state. But there's a precondition, this low desire has to be an active choice, not passive resignation. If it's passive, then its essence isn't lowered desire, it's compressed hope. Right now in China, both situations coexist. Distinguishing between the two clearly is far more important than simple criticism or sympathy.

[00:10:00]To summarize in three sentences.

[00:10:03]First, a low desire society isn't young people lacking ambition. It's the rational response to a failed incentive system.

[00:10:11]When the return on effort keeps declining, reducing your input is normal logical behavior.

[00:10:16]Second, China's low desire and Japan's look alike, but their essences [music] differ.

[00:10:21]Japan's is the fatigue that comes after abundance. China's is more the giving up that comes from being unable [music] to reach. Different stages of development require different solutions.

[00:10:32]Third, low desire itself isn't the biggest problem. Passive low desire is.

[00:10:36]If young people are actively choosing a simple life, that's a life philosophy.

[00:10:41]If they're abandoning expectations because they see no hope, that's a crisis the whole society needs to face.

[00:10:47]I'm curious what you think. Is the low desire you see around you an active choice or passive resignation or both at the same time?

[00:10:56]And there's an even bigger question. If low desire really becomes the norm for an entire generation, what do you think is the key to breaking this cycle? Let me know in the comments.

[00:11:06]If you enjoy this kind of content that breaks down social phenomena with data and logic, give it a like, subscribe to the channel, and I'll see you in the next video.