‘It’s like a utopia’: Young people in China are escaping the rat race by fleeing to ‘youth retirement villages’ — mirroring quiet quitting in America. Are young adults being pushed too hard?

Lying flat and quiet quitting

This is similar to the sense of disillusionment seemingly rampant in the U.S. and elsewhere, as young people question traditional workplace culture. In China, the term is tangping, which translates to “lying flat” and refers to slowing down or opting out of the rat race. It’s not exactly the same thing as ‘quiet quitting’ in the U.S., but it’s rooted in a similar sense of disillusionment.

Quiet quitting refers to doing the minimum amount of work required to keep your job. It’s not about being lazy; rather, those who feel overworked, burnt out and underappreciated simply disengage. They don’t actually quit their job, but they check out emotionally. So, for example, they don’t come to work early or stay late, and they don’t attend non-mandatory meetings or work functions.

Gallup’s 2024 State of the Global Workforce found that global employee engagement stagnated in 2023 while overall well-being declined. Only 23% of respondents said they were engaged at work, with 62% saying they weren’t engaged and 15% saying they were actively disengaged.

“The result is that the majority of the world’s employees continue to struggle at work and in life, with direct consequences for organizational productivity,” according to the report. Gallup also found that well-being among workers under the age of 35 fell from 35% to 31% (which isn’t very high to begin with). This isn’t good for the economy either, with Gallup estimating that low engagement costs the global economy $8.9 trillion — that’s 9% of global GDP.

A better quality of life is so important that, in a 2024 survey by Ford Motor Company, half of global respondents said they’d accept a 20% pay cut in favor of prioritizing their quality of life.

“The majority report feeling connected to their roles at work but acknowledge that a stressful job simply isn’t worth it,” according to the survey.

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Are young adults being pushed too hard?

A 2024 research series by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), which surveyed 1,405 U.S. employees, found that 44% feel burned out at work, 45% are “emotionally drained” from their work and 51% feel “used up” at the end of the workday.

While workers of all generations can experience burnout, youth may be feeling more hopeless than older generations, with the prospect of student debt, unaffordable housing, the rising cost of living and a highly competitive job market hanging over their heads. Indeed, data from Pew Research Center found that only 42% of adults under the age of 50 say it’s still possible to achieve the American dream.

So, instead of checking into a youth retirement village, they simply check out. So how can youth get ahead in this economy without burning out? Gen Zs and millennials want purpose-driven work that aligns with their values, according to Deloitte’s 2024 Gen Z and Millennial report. Maybe they can be the change they want to see in the world; maybe they find that purpose in other aspects of their life, instead of work.

They can also keep pushing boundaries and demanding more from their employers.

“Gen Zs and millennials have played a significant role in pushing the boundaries of what is expected from employers over the last decade, and they will continue to do so,” according to the Deloitte report.

Or, maybe America needs to adopt the concept of laying flat and start opening youth retirement villages.