改革開放后出生的中國新生代,是深受重大社會歷史變遷影響又在其中發揮重要作用的"社會代"。高速經濟增長、獨生子女政策、教育擴張、互聯網興起、市場化、工業化、城鎮化以及全球化和中國崛起等一系列重大歷史事件交織于他們的個體生命歷程中,在他們成長的每個階段影響著他們的生存機遇,形塑了他們的代際特征,凸顯了他們與前輩群體的代際差異。但與此同時,新生代的代際共性未能突破社會結構的制約,代際認同也沒能消解代際內部的社會經濟差異。相反,市場化推進導致的社會分化強化了階層地位代際傳遞效應,"二代"現象也成為新生代無法回避的代際面貌之一。當今中國的發展進入了新時代,青年的發展也邁入了新時期,均衡發展是新生代在新時代面臨的新挑戰。

China’s New Generation,born during the 1980 s and 1990 s,is a social cohort grown up in the era of Reform and Opening-up. They are simultaneously influenced by and play a critical role in a series of major historical events in the aftermath of the Reform and Opening-up. The life course of this generation is intertwined with major social changes,such as high-speed economic growth,the one-child policy,education expansion,the rise of the Internet, marketization, industrialization, urbanization,globalization and the rise of China. These changes greatly affect their living circumstances and opportunities,shaping the generational characteristics while widening the intergenerational gap between them and the previous generations. At the same time,however, China’s New Generation was unable to break the constraints of social structure. Shared generational identity fails to eliminate socio-economic disparities within the generation. On the contrary,marketization has strengthened the structure of social class through intergenerational transmission. In China’s new era of development,to promote equal opportunities and narrow socio-economic differences among the new generation now proves to be a new challenge.