Since the 1980s, more than 800 million Chinese have risen out of poverty. China’s middle class expanded from virtually no one to about 400 million. Villagers moved to cities. Tens of millions of people became the first in their families to attend college.

自20世纪80年代以来，超过8亿中国人摆脱了贫困。中国的中产阶级从几乎没有，扩大到大约4亿人。村民们搬到了城市。数以千万计的人成为家中第一个上大学的人。

Today, China’s economic growth has slowed. As wages stagnate and jobs disappear, the promise of upward social mobility is eroding, especially for those from modest backgrounds.

今天，中国的经济增长已经放缓。随着工资停滞不前，工作岗位逐渐消失，社会向上流动的希望正在破灭，尤其是对那些出身普通的人来说。

For many people like Boris Gao, the Chinese Dream no longer feels achievable.

对许多像鲍里斯·高（音）这样的人来说，中国梦已经遥不可及。

After Mr. Gao’s parents were laid off from their jobs at state-owned factories, his father drove a taxi and his mother stayed home. The family struggled to make ends meet. To save money, his mother canceled a text message service from his school, causing him to miss notifications of homework and school activities.

他的父母从国有工厂下岗后，父亲开出租车，母亲留在家里。一家人的生活捉襟见肘。为了省钱，母亲取消了学校的短信服务，导致他错过了家庭作业和学校活动的通知。

But Mr. Gao was exceptionally driven. After graduating from college in 2016, he worked hard, saved aggressively and attended a graduate program in Hong Kong. Since 2024, his job hunt has been an ordeal. One company asked him to work with no pay during a trial period. He quit a job after not being paid for two months. Another company rejected him because he was educated outside mainland China, making him politically unreliable, he was told.

但是鲍里斯·高特别努力。2016年大学毕业后，他勤奋工作，积极存钱，在香港读了研究生。自2024年以来，他的求职一波三折。一家公司要求他在试用期无偿工作。因为两个月未领到工资，他辞掉了另一份工作。还有一家公司拒绝他，是因为他在中国大陆以外接受教育，这使得他在政治上不可靠。

In one interview, he was asked about his parents’ professions, which is not unusual in China. “Your family has low social status,” Mr. Gao was told and did not get the job.

在一次面试中，他被问及父母的职业，这在中国并不罕见。“你的家庭社会地位很低，”鲍里斯·高被告知，并且没有得到这份工作。

“To them, perseverance is a defect,” he said. “If you have to struggle, it means you’re not good enough.”

“对他们来说，坚持不懈是一种缺陷，”他说。“如果你必须拼命奋斗，那就意味着你不够好。”

Anxiety over inequality is growing in China. Children of privilege inherit not only wealth but also prestigious jobs and powerful connections. Children of laborers and farmers, no matter how driven or well educated, often struggle to break through.

在中国，对不平等的焦虑正在加剧。特权家庭的子女不仅继承财富，还继承了有声望的工作和强大的关系网。而劳工和农民的孩子，无论多么努力或受过多么良好的教育，往往难以取得突破。

北京的大学生。在中国，对不平等的担忧与日俱增，因为即使受过教育也不一定能找到一份稳定的工作。

It’s a dynamic that would feel familiar to many in the United States and some other developed nations. But in China, the stakes are higher. The average standard of living is lower, and the social safety net is far more fragile.

这种情况，对于美国和其他一些发达国家的许多人来说都很熟悉。但在中国意味着更严重的后果。人们的平均生活水平更低，社会保障体系也更加脆弱。

The disillusionment is being captured sarcastically online. One buzzword is “Pindie,” a biting term for nepotism that means “competing through one’s father.” Another is “county Brahmins,” which lampoons small-town elites who gain status by monopolizing connections and jobs.

网络上以一种讽刺的方式捕捉到了这种幻灭感。其中一个流行语是“拼爹”， 这是一个对裙带关系的尖刻说法，意思是“靠父亲来竞争”。另一个流行语是“县城婆罗门”，讽刺那些通过垄断关系和工作获得地位的小镇精英。

The discontent over privilege boiled over recently when a trainee doctor in the center of an extramarital affair with a doctor appeared to have questionable credentials. People noted that her father led a big state-owned enterprise and that her mother was a senior official at a university. After an investigation, her medical license was revoked.

最近，一位与医生发生婚外情的实习医生被怀疑资质有问题，对特权的不满情绪随之爆发。人们注意到，她的父亲领导着一家大型国有企业，她的母亲是一所大学的高级官员。经过调查，她的行医执照被吊销。

The online debate fueled outrage that family ties, not merit, are what advance careers in China today.

网上的争论激起了人们的愤怒，认为在今天的中国，家庭关系，而不是价值，才是晋升的关键。

“At a time when competition for quality education is fierce and jobs are hard to find after graduation, fairness is not just a moral imperative,” wrote Hu Xijin, the retired editor of the official Global Times tabloid. “It is essential to maintaining social stability.”

“在当前优质教育资源竞争激烈，毕业后工作难找的情况下，公平尤其是实现社会情绪平稳的关键事项，”官方小报《环球时报》退休主编胡锡进写道。

To understand this shift, I put out a call for Chinese people to write to me about their experiences in trying to move up from working-class backgrounds. All the responses I received were from men. I interviewed five of them, all between the ages of 25 and 49. They asked that I use only their family names or their English names because they feared government retribution.

为了理解这种转变，我呼吁中国人给我写信，告诉我他们从工人阶级出身努力向上发展的经历。我收到的所有回复都来自男性。我采访了其中的五位，年龄在25岁到49岁之间。由于担心政府的报复，他们要求我只使用他们的姓氏或英文名。

无论多么有抱负，工人和农民的子女在向上流动时往往都会面临巨大的障碍。

The two oldest in the group did not go to college but rode China’s wave of growth that took off at the start of the century. They are now worried they will slip back to where they started.

这群人中年龄最大的两位没有上过大学，但却搭上了本世纪初中国经济增长的便车。他们现在担心自己会倒退，回到起点。

One of those two, who asked that I use only his surname, Zhao, dropped out of high school and became a coal miner. For three years, he worked eight-hour shifts in dark, freezing mine shafts. Then he moved to Beijing to pursue acting and worked briefly as a film extra.

其中一位要求我只透露他姓赵，他高中辍学后成了一名煤矿工人。三年来，他在黑暗、冰冷的矿井里轮班工作，每班工作八小时。后来他搬到北京从事表演工作，做过一段时间的电影临时演员。

In 2014, China’s housing market was booming. Mr. Zhao started working in real estate. His $700 monthly pay matched what he had made as a miner, but, he said, “I could see the sun and live a normal life.”

2014年，中国房地产市场蓬勃发展。赵先生开始从事房地产工作。他每月约5000元的工资与他当矿工时的相当，但他说，“我可以看到太阳，过上正常的生活。”

In 2017, he became a mortgage broker, and his pay increased several fold. One month in 2020, he earned $15,000. He married and bought a car.

2017年，他成了一名抵押贷款经纪人，工资增加了几倍。2020年的一个月，他赚了约10万元。他结婚了，还买了车。

Then the housing market collapsed. He has had no income for the past year. He has considered returning to the mines, but the thought of that dark world repelled him. Now Mr. Zhao, 38, and his wife live on her $500 monthly salary. Children are out of the question.

接着，房地产市场崩溃了。他去年没有任何收入。他曾考虑过回到矿上，但一想到那个黑暗的世界，他就感到厌恶。现在，38岁的赵先生和妻子靠她每月3500元的工资生活。要孩子是不可能的。

“I’m stuck in limbo,” he said. “The better life is out of reach, and I can’t fall low enough to start over. I have no idea what I should be doing.”

“我进退两难，”他说。“更好的生活遥不可及，我又不能落到重新开始的地步。我不知道我该做什么。”

The three younger men I interviewed, born in the 1990s, called themselves “small-town test-taking experts.” That is slang used to describe strivers who believed education would lift them up, only to find they were shut out of elite networks and stuck in dead-end jobs.

我采访的三位90后年轻人自称是“小镇做题家”。这是一个俗语，用来形容那些相信教育能提升地位的奋斗者，结果，他们却发现自己被精英网络拒之门外，从事着没有前途的工作。

The three men grew up in rural and working-class homes and rose above their parents’ social class through hard work and by attending universities. But they all learned it would be hard to fully escape their socioeconomic backgrounds.

这三个人在农村和工人阶级家庭长大，通过努力工作和上大学而超越了父母的社会阶层。但他们都知道，要完全摆脱自己的社会经济背景是很难的。

Two of them had to give up spots at leading foreign schools, one at Columbia University and the other at the London School of Economics, because of the cost.

其中两名学生因为学费问题，不得不放弃了外国名校的入学资格，一个人放弃了哥伦比亚大学，另一个人放弃了伦敦政治经济学院。

All three recalled that, when they were growing up, their parents had paid little attention to their education.

他们三个人都回忆说，在他们成长的过程中，父母很少关注他们的教育。

对一些中国学生来说，教育让他们看到了不平等。

Their experiences with education were the opposite of those of children in many of China’s upper-middle-class families. Those parents pushed their children into math and computer classes, and piano lessons and English tutoring. They are driven by the fear of letting their children “lose at the starting line.” These families may have more in common with their American peers than with China’s working class.

他们的教育经历与中国许多中上层家庭的孩子截然相反。这些父母强迫孩子去上数学和计算机课，钢琴课和英语辅导。他们害怕孩子“输在起跑线上”。与中国的工人阶级相比，这些家庭与美国同阶层家庭的共同点可能更多。

For the three small-town strivers I interviewed, their educations opened their eyes to inequality.

对于我采访的三位小镇做题家来说，他们所受的教育让他们看到了不平等。

One of them, Gary Liang, said most of the parents of classmates at his elementary school had worked at factories. When he was in high school, most parents were professionals. One student had a foreign English-language tutor.

其中一位名叫加里·梁（音）的学生说，他小学同学的父母大多在工厂工作。到他上中学的时候，大多数同学的父母都是白领。一个同学在家有英语外教。

The contrast was even more jarring when Mr. Liang entered a prestigious university in central China. The father of one of his roommates was a local-level Communist Party secretary; another roommate’s father was a university dean.

当加里·梁进入中国中部的一所名牌大学时，这种反差更加强烈。他的一个室友的父亲是地方党委书记；另一个室友的父亲是一所大学的院长。

While his roommates dined out, Mr. Liang got by on food from the university canteen and tutored high school students to earn some cash. At the time, he did not understand why his roommates spent so much time networking at school.

当室友去吃馆子的时候，加里·梁靠大学食堂勉强度日，给高中生当家教赚点外快。当时，他不明白室友们为什么要花那么多时间，在学校里建立关系网。

“It’s very unfair,” said Mr. Liang, who is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Japan. “You put in so much effort, and then you realize that some things are just a lot easier for other people, or not nearly as hard for them.”

“这很不公平，”正在日本攻读博士学位的梁先生说。“你付出了如此多的努力，然后你意识到有些事情对其他人来说要容易得多，或者对他们来说没有那么难。”

中国广州一家制衣厂的夜班。

One sought-after path to move up in China runs through state-owned enterprises, which can offer elite, stable jobs. But landing one can require the right connections.

在中国，进入国有企业是炙手可热的晋升之路，国企可以提供稳定的精英职位。但要实现这一目标，可能需要合适的关系。

Josh Tang, a STEM graduate from a rural background, wanted to change his career from the grueling work culture of the tech industry. His father, a manual laborer who had once owned a small business, asked village relatives to help his son land a job at a bank. Mr. Tang submitted two applications but didn’t get an interview.

约西·唐（音）是一名农村出身的理科毕业生，他想改变自己的职业生涯，摆脱科技行业艰苦的工作文化。他的父亲是一名体力劳动者，曾经开过一家小公司，他请村里的亲戚帮儿子在银行找到一份工作。约西·唐提交了两份申请，但都没有得到面试机会。

When the economy was better, jobs at state-owned enterprises occasionally trickled down to people with his family background, said Mr. Tang, who went back to work in tech. But now, he added, “they’re viewed as the safest bets, so they circulate within the same class.”

后来又回到科技行业工作的约西·唐说，当经济好转时，国有企业的工作偶尔会流向他这种家庭背景的人，但现在，他说，“它们被视为最安全的选择，所以它们在同一个阶层中流动。”

“They’re hoarded, not shared,” he said.

“它们被囤积起来，不对外分享，”他说。