Meet the Ma family: how China’s indebted millennials changed the way the nation thinks about money
New generation of mainland adults, aged 18 to 35, among most indebted of their Asian peers with some borrowing of up to 18.5 times their income
Ma Yiqing, 24, is typical of China’s younger generation – he uses his credit card frequently and borrows from online platforms to fund his shopping habits.
Whenever he feels the pinch, he is happy to fall back on a lender closer to home – his mum and dad.
I’ll generally turn to mum and dad [when I need money]. They’ve always been able to help me financially
In May, he asked his parents for financial support to open a restaurant.
“I just need to ask and they’ll give me [money],” he said.
The views of Ma, a single-child, and those of his mother and his grandmother, show how rapidly attitudes towards credit are changing in China as the millennials generation – roughly those aged between 18 and 35 – have embraced debt like never before.
The frugal attitude of previous generations produced the bedrock of China’s credit worthiness – household savings equal to about 50 per cent of the nation’s gross domestic product – one of the highest levels globally.
Yet Ma and his cohorts are changing that equation. Their willingness to borrow has driven up household lending, which is the fastest growing area of China’s debt.