Editor’s note: The following article is one of 30 that we’ve selected from our archives to celebrate World Politics Review’s 15th anniversary. You can find the full collection here. China’s post-Mao generation, born since Mao Zedong’s 1976 death, has had formative life experiences that fundamentally differ from China’s older generations. Unlike their elders, Chinese born in the post-Mao era have not suffered the trauma of civil war, revolution, collectivization, starvation or the chaos of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. They also have been far more geographically mobile than older generations, whose ability to move freely was highly constricted by the government’s strict residential […]