蚁族

Imagine thousands of college graduates crammed into tiny basement rooms on the outskirts of Beijing, working dead-end jobs that barely pay rent — that's the Ant Tribe. Like ants, they're industrious, numerous, and living on top of each other. The term captures the bittersweet reality of educated young people who chased the diploma dream only to find the job market had other plans. Equal parts self-deprecating badge of honor and social critique.

Coined by sociologist Lian Si around 2009 after years of fieldwork, the term gained renewed traction around 2015 as graduate unemployment and housing costs soared. China's massive expansion of university enrollment in the 2000s produced far more graduates than the economy could absorb into white-collar roles, leaving many highly educated young people in precarious, low-wage urban living situations that clashed sharply with their expectations.

指大学毕业后聚居在城市边缘、收入低微、生活拥挤的年轻群体，如蚂蚁般勤劳却艰难。