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The 19 Percent

Group of people at crosswalk
Bim / via Getty Images

The 19 Percent is a pioneering project structured around the stark number of 19.3%: the youth unemployment rate in China as of mid-2022. The 19 Percent advocates understanding the unemployment rate not merely in the blunt terms of economic policy, national security, or even politics and regime stability, but as a number that reflects millions of broken dreams. It has huge affective impact, as well as a cascade of quantifiable consequences. Through ethnographic study, the 19 Percent project aims to understand and explain what that unemployment represents regarding broader societal realities. It's also a call for empathy and people-centered conversations that understand trends as embodied phenomena that affect real lives. The 19% number also represents both the stark competition in Chinese society and the fact that the Chinese economy is no longer growing at sufficient rates to meet employment demand.

Related Work

  • Baby Crawling Race In Shanghai
    paper

    The Last Generation: Why China’s Youth Are Deciding Against Having Children

    In his third paper of The 19 Percent paper series, Barclay Bram traces the reasons and repercussions behind Chinese individuals' reluctance to become parents.
  • Barclay Bram - Psychotherapy
    paper

    The Explosive Rise of Psychotherapy in China

    In his second paper of The 19 Percent paper series, Barclay Bram writes about the explosive rise of psychotherapy in China.
  • Chinese jobseekers in search of jobs at an employment fair in Beijing 27 February 2007.
    paper

    Involution: The Generation Turning Inward and Away From Xi’s Chinese Dream

    Barclay Bram writes about the effects of poor economic outlook and high inequality on Chinese youth.
  • Job seekers visit a job fair for graduating university students at the Qujiang International Convention and Exhibition Center on February 28, 2009 in Xian of Shaanxi Province, China.
    article

    The 19 Percent: The Social Consequences of China’s Youth Unemployment Rate

    Across four papers, this series seeks to put the number 19.3%, China's urban youth unemployment rate, in context and explain how it is experienced by young people in China today.

Fellow

  • Barclay Bram - Headshot - 2022
    bio

    Barclay Bram

    Junior Fellow, Chinese Society
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