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China society
EconomyChina Economy

China’s middle class is stressed. Can its growing mental health industry lend a helping hand?

  • Demand for psychological counselling has increased in China as anxieties mount – and the industry is expanding to meet it
  • Worries over economic and social standing are bleeding into interpersonal relationships, professionals say, creating a need for licensed services

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Illustration: Lau Ka-kuen
He Huifengin GuangdongandMandy Zuoin Shanghai

In the past few years, psychological counsellor Huang Jing has watched her business thrive.

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With any other industry, that would be cause for celebration – China has made private enterprise a priority as it pushes for sustained economic recovery – but a higher demand for mental health services carries other, more troubling implications.

Huang set up her first counselling company, Better Family, in Shanghai in February 2022 – not long before the city’s notorious two-month lockdown began. Business recovered quickly when quarantine lifted in June, and her practice broke even three months later. Six months after that, she opened two more offices there.

Now, she has expanded to Hangzhou, operating three offices in the Yangtze Delta tech hub.

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Nearly 3 years of Covid curbs take their toll on China’s middle class with many seeking counselling

Nearly 3 years of Covid curbs take their toll on China’s middle class with many seeking counselling

The rapid growth in businesses like Huang’s, lucrative though it may be, reflects a rise in conditions like anxiety and depression among the public – including the middle class, widely regarded as foundational to China’s economic growth and social progress.

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