‘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?

Su Cong, a 29-year-old worker from Beijing, tells the Los Angeles Times that the Guanye Youth Retirement Village is “like a utopia.” Cong lives at Guanye, working remotely and setting his own schedule, while taking part in organized activities (which include painting, hiking and horseback riding). All that for the equivalent of about $420 a month for room and board — less than his rent in Beijing.

Other youth retirement villages have popped up around the country, where young people can go for morning strolls, play mahjong in the garden and do arts and crafts. Some residents are long-term remote workers, while others are short-term guests. And some stay on as a volunteer, doing chores for free room and board.

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.