ABSTRACT
The “post-eighties generation,” referring to young people born after 1980, has emerged as a popular catchphrase in the media, both on mainland China and in Hong Kong. On the one hand, being raised in the 1980s when the Hong Kong economy had taken off, they share no experience of poverty, as their parents’ generation did. On the other hand, they were hit by the worst economic recession since the Second World War when they entered the job market, and many have become rather disenchanted with the specious “tickets” to success associated with paper qualifications affected by inflation due to the rapid expansion of higher education in the 1990s. It is generally believed that such factors have combined to make this generation qualitatively different from their parents’ generation, be it in attitudes to work, political inclination or life philosophy.
