零工经济

China's version of the gig economy discourse, but with a bitterer aftertaste. On the surface it means flexible freelance hustle — delivery riders, rideshare drivers, livestream hosts. In practice, young Chinese netizens use it as shorthand for 'the full-time job market failed me so now I piece together five income streams and call it freedom.' Equal parts aspirational branding and dark self-deprecating humor about precarious modern labor.

As China's youth unemployment hit record highs in the early-to-mid 2020s, platforms like Meituan, Didi, and Taobao Live absorbed millions of workers who couldn't land stable jobs. The term entered meme territory when workers began ironically rebranding their financial precarity as entrepreneurial freedom, echoing global gig economy rhetoric while masking real anxieties about social security, benefits, and long-term stability.

指通过短期、灵活、按需接单的方式赚钱的经济模式，如外卖骑手、网约车司机、自由接单者等。