Why Every Ordinary Chinese Worker Needs Economics Now

Key Takeaways

• Urbanization in China hit 67.89% by 2025, up from 17.92% in 1978, making market literacy essential.
• Choosing a rising industry matters more than grinding in a declining one for lifetime earnings.
• AI is reshaping jobs; understanding its commercial logic helps workers adapt, not just tech firms.
• Agricultural modernization is inevitable; economics helps farmers hedge risks and boost profits.

The Market Has Replaced Self-Sufficiency

I spent my whole life as a university professor, and I want to tell you this: no matter what job you do, as an ordinary person, you need to understand some economics. You need to pay attention to the economy. When I say economics matters, your first reaction might be, "I'm just a nine-to-five office worker living day to day. What use is it to me?"

Economics isn't about teaching you to speculate or get rich overnight. It's about the rising price of groceries you buy daily, the major you choose in college, the direction of your job search after graduation, whether the money in your bank quietly loses value, and whether your job will be replaced by technology. Even your future plans depend on it.

Let me break this down from five angles. In my generation, most people stuck to their small plot of land. They ate what they grew, raised what they ate. Life was hard, but hearts were settled. Times have changed completely. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's urbanization rate was just 17.92% in 1978. By the end of 2025, the urbanization rate of the registered population had reached 67.89%. The vast majority of people have completely left the self-sufficient model behind. Every need in daily life now goes through market transactions.

For example, if your morning bun costs 50 cents more, it's not because the shop owner is greedy. It could be international grain price fluctuations or rising domestic pork costs. Your monthly mortgage or rent is directly affected by monetary policy, interest rate adjustments, and the real estate cycle. Even the money sitting in your bank account — if you don't understand inflation and leave everything in a demand deposit, the numbers on paper barely change, but your actual purchasing power shrinks significantly.

Choosing the Right Industry Beats Grinding It Out

In my era, under the planned economy, farmers' children kept farming and workers' children took over factory jobs. It was inherited work. Not anymore. Even bank jobs, civil service positions, and teaching — the so-called iron rice bowls — aren't so iron these days. Young people today have to fend for themselves, find their own jobs. But many people pick majors and switch jobs based only on immediate salary, not on whether the work has a future. They end up stranded halfway.

In 2020, the education and training sector was booming. Many saw high salaries and piled in. In 2021, the "double reduction" policy [Note: China's policy to reduce homework and after-school tutoring burdens on students] landed, and a large number of workers were forced to change careers. If people had been paying attention to economic hotspots, to the national dual-carbon policy and new energy industry trends, and entered those fields early, they would have caught the wave. Right now, employment prospects vary wildly across industries. Job demand and salary growth in emerging sectors are several times — even more than ten times — higher than in traditional declining industries. For ordinary people, wages are the core source of lifetime income. Choosing a rising industry is far more useful than grinding out seniority in a dying one.

Waves of Opportunity and the AI Shift

In just a few decades, China went from poverty to moderate prosperity, a development miracle. But the flip side of rapid growth is the fast iteration of wealth logic and opportunity. If you don't want to be left behind, you have to keep up. Over the past 40 years, wave after wave of era dividends appeared: the private business wave of the 1980s, the capital market start of the 1990s, the golden decade of real estate in the 2000s, and the internet and new energy surges of the 2010s. Each wave was caught by those who saw the trend. Those who thought "national development has nothing to do with me" watched the gap widen.

The ordinary worker's mindset is: "I'm just an employee doing my job. National policy and economic development are slogans on the news. Not my business." But in reality, every policy adjustment and every industrial transformation directly affects your income, your assets, your life. In just a few years, AI has penetrated every corner of life. Robots in factories replace assembly line workers. Autonomous driving matures. Everyone's phone has AI built in. Many think AI development is a tech company's problem. But economics never teaches you to develop AI — it teaches you to understand the commercialization logic behind the technology. Which industries will AI reshuffle? Which positions will be replaced? Which skills are future-proof? Which trends are short-term bubbles? That matters to you.

Farming Needs Market Sense Too

Nowadays, most people farming in rural areas are parents. Young people have all flocked to the cities. Fewer and fewer want to stay and farm. People ask: who will farm when there's no one left? The answer is simple: agricultural modernization is an irreversible trend. The same grain — a scattered smallholder sells cheap to middlemen for a bit of profit, and loses money when prices crash. Someone who understands markets locks in buyers early, uses agricultural futures and insurance to hedge price risks. The same fruit — scattered growers follow the herd. One year sugar oranges are hot, next year everyone plants them, supply exceeds demand, and they rot in the fields. Someone who knows economics analyzes supply and demand, differentiates their planting, opens e-commerce channels, and sells fruit at several times the price.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, ordinary people learn economics not for speculative revenge, not to become stock market gurus or financial experts. It's to light the way for your life and work. Today's 80s, 90s, and 00s generations face enormous pressure: cars, housing, education, retirement, and being squeezed by new technological revolutions every day. In this era where no one can escape the market or the economy, economic knowledge is no longer exclusive to university lecture halls. It's a required course for ordinary people. You don't need to become a finance professional, and you can't use this knowledge to get rich overnight. But you must understand the economic knowledge tied to your own life, because this knowledge and awareness can help you make the right choices on life's path and reduce the cost of trial and error.

Why It Matters for International Readers

This video reflects a pragmatic, pro-development strain of Chinese public opinion. The speaker is not criticizing the system but urging ordinary citizens to engage with it actively. This is a common theme among Chinese educators and commentators: the state provides the framework, but individuals must navigate it intelligently. The creator's stance is essentially nationalist-pragmatic — accepting the market economy's logic while emphasizing state policy signals like dual-carbon and new energy as guides for personal decisions.

For outsiders, this reveals how deeply market consciousness has penetrated Chinese society. The shift from 17.92% to 67.89% urbanization isn't just a statistic — it represents hundreds of millions of people now dependent on markets, prices, and policy cycles. When Chinese influencers tell audiences to watch interest rates, inflation, and industry policy, it signals a population that increasingly thinks like investors in their own lives. This has global implications: Chinese consumer behavior, career choices, and even farming decisions now respond to market signals in ways that affect global commodity prices, supply chains, and labor markets.

The AI discussion is particularly relevant internationally. The speaker's framing — that workers should understand AI's commercial logic rather than fear it — mirrors debates in the US and Europe about automation and job displacement. But the Chinese context adds a twist: the state actively shapes which industries rise and fall. Understanding how Chinese influencers frame these transitions helps foreign observers predict labor market shifts, policy acceptance, and where Chinese talent will flow next.

Sources

• Original: University professor's economic advice video (Douyin, 2025)
• Context: National Bureau of Statistics of China — urbanization rate data, 1978 and 2025

SUMMARY: A retired Chinese professor argues ordinary workers must learn economics to navigate market shifts, AI disruption, and industry cycles, urging proactive adaptation over passive survival.

Originally published on China View.