Disappearing Chinese Collectivism: Changes in Mentality and Behavior of Young Chinese

Abstract

The traditional perception of China as a collectivist country is slowly ceasing to be true. After the economic changes, the social changes are coming, as a result of which collectivism slowly gives way to individualism. Changes take place in many spheres of life: private—replacing a large, multi-generational family with a nuclear family with one child, a growing number of divorces, protection of the individual’s privacy; professional—the emergence of foreign companies with a different culture of work, competition and “rat race”; moral—verbal persistence to collectivist values that do not match the private patterns of behavior. China’s economic development and the actual promotion of capitalist values, with the persistent verbal attachment to socialist values, have caused an increasing number of Chinese people, especially those from the so-called post-80 generation and younger, to not identify any longer with the values of older generations and put their own interest over the interest of the family, kinship group or nation. The gap between official rhetoric and the declared attachment to collectivism is slowly growing, and the capitalist realities are forcing people to individualistic behavior and competition for access to goods and resources.