Is the 'Non-Striving Generation' Real? — Student Value Shifts, Hiring Mismatches, and Redesigning Social Participation

What's Happening

"Young people these days don't try hard enough." This phrase has been repeated throughout every era, but the situation surrounding today's students involves structural changes that differ from the past.

According to Mynavi's 2026 graduate survey, 8.4% of students answered "as long as there's income, that's fine." This has increased for five consecutive years, more than tripling from ten years ago. In enterprise selection criteria, "stable companies" has been the top choice for seven consecutive years. While "want to work enjoyably" (37.4%) continues to hold the top position, "want to balance personal life and work" at 25.6% has increased for three consecutive years. The tendency to prioritize stability and lifestyle over growth and challenges is clearly manifested in the numbers.

But is this "not striving"? For students who feel the pressure of food and housing costs amid rising prices and face student loan repayments, stability-seeking is a survival strategy. It's not laziness, but rationality.

At the same time, another change is progressing. According to Gallup's 2025 survey, Japan's employee engagement rate is only 7%, the lowest among OECD countries. This is overwhelmingly low compared to the global average of 21% and the US's 32%. 44.5% of full-time employees are engaged in "quiet quitting," and 71.0% of them transitioned to this state "after joining the company." In other words, people who joined with motivation are losing that motivation due to workplace environments.

Students are seeing—whether intuitively or not—the landscape that lies ahead.

Background and Context

Is "Choosing Based on Atmosphere" Really Shallow?

There's a structural mismatch between corporate recruitment branding and student behavior.

Question	Attitude (when asked)	Behavior (in practice)	Source
Does purpose alignment increase interest?	62%+ say 'yes'	Social significance doesn't rank top 3 in actual selection	Gakujo / Baigie 2024
Do you value time efficiency (taipa)?	61.1% say 'yes'	Career sites: leave-or-stay decision in 1–5 min	Mynavi / Baigie 2024
Do you want to volunteer?	57.5% of non-participants say 'yes'	Actual participation rate: 24.7%	Nippon Foundation 2023

'Yes when asked' and 'actual behavior' run on different systems. What needs designing is not attitudes, but behavioral pathways.

In Gakujo's survey, over 62% of students answered that "volunteer spirit increases when I can empathize with the purpose." In Wantedly's survey, 70% answered that they "want to work at companies with purposes they can empathize with." However, in Beige's actual behavior survey, what students actually prioritize on recruitment sites is not "social significance" but "benefits," "work comfort," and "whether I can imagine myself being there."

This gap doesn't indicate student insincerity. When asked "Do you empathize with the purpose?" they answer "yes"—that's an attitude statement. But when actually choosing companies, judgment criteria shift to "worldview," "atmosphere," and "daily tangibility." 30% spend "about 5 minutes" browsing recruitment sites, and 23% spend "about 1 minute." Without conveying worldview, information volume becomes meaningless.

Companies create "mission-heavy" sites, and students leave within a minute. This phenomenon is not a student problem but a design problem.

Volunteer Motivation is Shifting to "Self-Care"

According to the 2023 survey by the Nippon Foundation Volunteer Center, student volunteer participation rates recovered to 24.7%, returning to pre-COVID levels. However, what's noteworthy is the breakdown of non-participants. Of the 75.3% who don't participate, 57.5% hope to participate in volunteering. There's a structure of "wanting to but unable to."

The quality of motivation is also transforming. Research by Tadahiro Ito and others at Gakushuin University shows that students with short activity histories emphasize "self-growth" and "skill acquisition," while those with longer histories shift toward "realizing ideals" and "social adaptation." In the Cabinet Office's 2022 survey, the most common participation reason was "wanting to be useful to society" (about 59%), but "self-development and personal growth" also ranked high.

In one dialogue, these words emerged: "Volunteering is close to self-care." Being directly thanked by someone, feeling the "substance" of words spoken in the field rather than the "symbols" of social media follower counts. This itself becomes motivation.

It would be hasty to dismiss this change as "selfish." With 51% of Gen Z feeling social media fatigue (SHIBUYA109 lab. survey) and loneliness among people in their 20s and 30s being higher than other generations (Cabinet Office FY2024 survey), the scarcity value of real connections continues to rise. That volunteering has taken on the function of "connection recovery" means the entry points for social participation have expanded.

"Point Thinking" is Not an Individual Problem

"Students only grasp things in points." This observation also underlies the structure of illegal part-time work. According to National Police Agency data, 46.9% of illegal part-time work suspects (not limited to students) applied via social media. The structure of responding to keywords like "immediate high income" and "easy for anyone" is spreading regardless of age, with immediate reward orientation in the background.

Information

• Short videos (15-sec completion)
• Instant 'like' feedback on SNS
• Algorithmic fragmentation of information

Economic

• Rising prices and financial anxiety
• 'Income is all that matters': 8.4% (5yr increase)
• Dark side jobs: 46.9% via SNS (all ages)

Social

• COVID erased formative experiences
• Real connections becoming scarce
• 7% workplace engagement rate

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Individual 'point thinking' is a structural outcome of these environments

However, behavioral economics findings show that time discount rates—how much one values "immediately available rewards"—are not individual personality traits but are strongly determined by environment. Short videos completed in 15 seconds, immediate "like" feedback on social media, algorithmic information fragmentation. These environmental designs structurally reduce the value of "waiting."

In PISA 2022, Japanese 15-year-olds' reading comprehension recovered to 3rd place (from a sharp drop to 15th in 2018). Cognitive abilities themselves aren't declining. The problem is not ability but environment. It should be read not as "only thinking in points" but as the environment reinforcing point-based cognition.

Reading the Structure

The "Non-Striving Generation" Doesn't Exist

What the data shows so far is a consistent structural message.

The 8.4% who say "as long as there's income, that's fine" represents a survival strategy amid rising prices and student loan repayments. Multiple job-hunting surveys confirm that many students lost opportunities for extracurricular activities and internships during COVID and feel anxious about materials for self-promotion—this is the result of being physically deprived of opportunities to strive. That 71% of the 44.5% in "quiet quitting" transitioned after joining is evidence that workplace environments are damaging engagement. "Choosing based on atmosphere" is a rational adaptation strategy in an information-overloaded environment.

The "non-striving generation" doesn't exist. What exists is an environment that has lost sight of how to strive and the absence of systems to support that striving.

Redesigning Social Participation—Implications for NPOs and Civil Society

Facing this structure, questions return to the NPO and civil society side as well.

First is "worldview" communication power. Students leave recruitment sites within a minute. NPO communications face the same scrutiny. Traditional channels like pamphlets and briefing sessions don't reach them. Design that conveys "whether I can imagine myself being there" within a minute is necessary.

Second is designing "social participation as connection recovery" head-on. If volunteer motivation is shifting to self-care, this should be welcomed as a positive change, intentionally designing "experiences of being thanked" and "real connections." Beyond the binary opposition of altruism versus egoism, improve the quality of contact points themselves.

Third is designing pathways that turn "points" into "lines". As the illegal part-time work structure shows, criticizing "point thinking" is meaningless. What should be questioned is whether pathways exist "from one participation experience to the next involvement." The fact that 57.5% of non-participating students hope to participate suggests significant design potential.

Not "strive harder" but "connect better." Designing these systems is the role of NPOs and civil society.

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References

• Mynavi 2026 Graduate Job Awareness Survey
• Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2025
• Mynavi Full-time Employee Quiet Quitting Survey 2025
• Nippon Foundation Volunteer Center National Student Survey of 10,000 2023
• University Student Volunteer Activity Motivation (Gakushuin University, Tadahiro Ito)
• Beige New Graduate Recruitment Site Usage Survey 2024
• Gakujo Purpose and Job Hunting
• Gen Z Social Media Usage Trends 2025 (SHIBUYA109 lab.)
• Cabinet Office National Survey on Loneliness and Isolation FY2024
• Wantedly Job Hunting and Long-term Internship Survey 2023
• National Police Agency Illegal Part-time Work Awareness Materials
• OECD PISA 2022

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Related Guides

• Stakeholder Map Creation Guide — Visualizing contact points with diverse actors
• Logic Model Creation Guide — Design framework for turning activity "points" into "lines"