Zak Dychtwald, Part 1 | The Identity of China's Millennial Generation

The Negotiation

Topics Discussed and Key Points:

● Who are China’s millennials, and how do they differ from millennials in the Western world?

● The downstream effects of the one-child policy on today’s market

● The state of mental health among China’s youth

● What employers expect from millennial hires

Episode Summary:

Today on The Negotiation, we speak with Zak Dychtwald, Founder and CEO of Young China Group, a think tank and consultancy with a focus on the emerging influence of China’s millennial generation on the marketplace, workplace, and international politics.

Zak is the author of Young China: How the Restless Generation Will Change Their Country and the World (2018). The book explores questions of identity impacting China’s young generation, specifically the 420 million or so people born after 1990.

Having first arrived in China in his early 20s, Zak was amazed by the “vast chasm” between the China he was always told about, and the China he was experiencing at that moment. He was inspired to bridge that chasm, and so began his multifaceted career journey around the country.

“We believe in a people-first perspective on China for a better world,” says Zack, referring to the thesis of not only his book but of his work as a whole.

Listen in as Zak defines the unique gap in China between the strict traditionalism of the previous generations and the modernization of the new, and the “identity formation anxiety” that the youth face in trying to reconcile “the pressures of tradition and the needs of modernity”.

He also speaks on China’s education system as undervaluing innovation and people skills, and how this translates into a workforce currently in transition.

Key Quotes:

“The China that gets described to us versus the China that I was seeing and experiencing on the ground—there is a pretty vast chasm between the two.”

“We believe in a people-first perspective on China for a better world.”

“I call this young generation the “Restless Generation” for a reason: It’s because they are in charge of defining China’s modern identity.”

“In order to understand the children, you have to understand the parents.”

“In China, the biggest investment that most families will make is in their children.”

“When we’re talking about consumption in China, it’s not a matter of where you’re from, but when you’re from.”