Society

Survey reveals youth attitudes on values

By Cheng Anqi (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-05-04 19:39

A survey of three generations of youth has shown a gulf in the attitudes of those born after 70s, 80s and 90s.

People born after this time frame in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong province, recently received an exploratory survey conducted by the city's Youth League Committee and were questioned about their outlook on love, consumer behavior, and values on work and public service, Guangzhou Daily reported.

It terms of consumer behavior, 65 percent of post-70s billed themselves as bank-aholic preferring to save money. 70 percent of post-80s admitted that they were month-ending people, using up all their salaries or earnings by the end of every month. Post-90s were addicted to online shopping, holding a belief that they can buy almost anything on the Internet.

Among the three groups, the post-80s felt more economic pressure. Facing soaring property prices, outstanding credit cards debts and the pressure of raising children, many Chinese white-collar workers feel over-fatigued every day and in poor health.

66 percent spend a large amount of their salary to pay down on a car loan or house loan, and interestingly, 57 percent were pleasure-seeker who like to spend bonuses on tourist sites.

35-year-old Zhang Xiaohui was a civil servant and always argued with his wife about money.

"She buys every tiny article of daily use online, from an air conditioner to a small bar of soap," He complained. "I even think she is affected with obsessive-compulsive disorder of on-line shopping."

The survey found that as many as 67 percent of post-80s claimed that they would never work overtime.

Benny is a clerk of a foreign-invested enterprise. She made a simple calculation to "just divide our monthly salary by working hours. We often forgot that many of us work more than just the regular hours. It's easy to stay half an hour or an hour late per day. Not to mention the crunch times at the end of projects. We work overtime. And for most of us that time is not compensated in money."

She can't understand why some post-70s colleagues bore the hardship without complaining but a simple "No problem".

Post-70s, on the contrary, tended to make the utmost possible effort to work well and obey the rule from their boss, showing their sense of duty and community.

When it came to love or marriage, post-90s and 80s appeared indifferent and prefer to pursue real feelings than marriage. 51 percent of post-90s said it's good to have their first kiss during their secondary school days and 61 percent of post-80s deemed that it was always a good idea to hold a ceremony for getting divorced as well.

30-year-old Mrs Wang was determined to end her one-year-and-seven-month marriage.

"My parents got into silly scrapes of unhappy marriage because they stuck to fogeyish traditions, such as civil union like their parents and next generation," she said.

But a 38-year-old surnamed Zhang did not agree "You shouldn't regard such an important and sacred union as a trifling matter," he disproved her idea that people cared for their aging parents while supporting their own children, so they should take responsibility for both of them and never think about divorce.

The survey discovered that compared to the other groups, post-70s were less fond of public service but strongly wanted their children to get into that.

As many as 51 percent of post-80s showed more enthusiasm on service of intangible cultural heritage and helping the aged and disabled while post-90s were more apt to make donations.