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Ken Ip

Hong Kong has always had a simple answer to what young people should do with their lives: study hard, get a job, work harder, buy a flat and eventually complain about the next generation. That formula is becoming harder to sell.
A whole lexicon has grown up around Generation Z’s uneasy relationship with work. In mainland China, there are “full-time children”, young adults who stay home and receive an allowance from their parents in return for doing household chores and running errands. Elsewhere, there is the “kangaroo tribe”, an updated version of adults remaining financially dependent on their parents. There are Neets, or young people not in education, employment or training.
While the labels differ, the underlying phenomenon is harder to ignore. More young adults are struggling to make the traditional transition to independence.
Hong Kong offers an especially revealing case. Consider university graduates with a respectable degree and little work experience. They apply for dozens of jobs, perhaps hundreds, only to find that “entry level” increasingly means “entry level for someone who already has experience”.
Employers want experienced workers, but young people need jobs to gain that experience. A position for fresh graduates can demand several years of achievements before an applicant has even had a chance to begin.
Against this backdrop, becoming a full-time child looks less absurd than it sounds. If a young adult can stay at home, avoid Hong Kong’s punishing housing costs, receive an allowance and help around the house, why rush into a poorly paid job with little security and even less prospect of progression?


This is not necessarily clever economic thinking. Living with parents while searching for meaningful work is one thing; turning dependence into a permanent lifestyle is another. Skills stagnate, professional networks wither and financial independence grows distant. The family home is a safety net, not a career plan.
Still, it would be too easy to blame young people when the incentives to move forward have fundamentally weakened. Hong Kong’s housing market is central to the story. Many parents accumulated property under conditions their children will struggle to reproduce, turning the family home into a form of intergenerational insurance.
Furthermore, Gen Z is entering the workforce just as artificial intelligence (AI) begins to dismantle the traditional career ladder. For decades, young graduates were told to accept junior roles as an investment in their future. Learn the ropes, make mistakes, build relationships and move up.
Now some AI models can perform basic research, analysis, coding, writing and administrative work. The broader problem with AI might not simply be that it eliminates jobs but that it eliminates the very roles through which humans learned how to do the high-level work machines cannot replace.
That helps explain a stark shift at universities. In the United States, where tech founders once received rock-star treatment on university campuses, tech executives have been met with scepticism or outright boos. The people who once represented the future now look like a threat to it.




Students are not necessarily anti-technology as they are among the first generation to live with AI as an everyday tool. What they are questioning is the bargain attached to it. If corporate productivity gains come from requiring fewer junior employees, where exactly are young people supposed to start?
This could also explain why some are less enthusiastic about corporate careers than their parents expect. They have watched previous generations work gruelling hours in finance, professional services and multinational companies while struggling with housing costs, stress and the elusive promise of work-life balance. The destination was supposed to be prosperity. For many, it became a mortgage and a WhatsApp group complaining about work.
It is tempting to dismiss Gen Z as entitled, but that misses a structural shift in the career bargain. The old bargain was straightforward. Effort produced progress. If the first rung is disappearing, young people will naturally question the ladder.
Companies must rethink how they cultivate talent. If every vacancy demands experience and AI reduces junior tasks, organisations need new ways for young employees to acquire judgment, creativity and professional instincts. Otherwise, the full-time child and the Neet will become less a social curiosity and more of a permanent labour-market symptom.
Gen Z is not rejecting work; it is rejecting the idea that any work is automatically worth doing. Hong Kong has spent decades teaching its young people how to compete. The harder question now is whether the economy is giving them anything worth competing for.


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Tough job and housing markets have graduates questioning whether the old bargain of hard work bringing progress and stability still applies


Tough job and housing markets have graduates questioning whether the old bargain of hard work bringing progress and stability still applies.


Hong Kong youth

Jobs

China

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Gen Z is turning filial piety into a career path

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Tough job and housing markets have graduates questioning whether the old bargain of hard work bringing progress and stability still applies

Tough job and housing markets have graduates questioning whether the old bargain of hard work bringing progress and stability still applies