Gen Z protests in Asia
Since the early 2020s, a series of mostly Generation Z-led anti-government protests and uprisings have spread across South and Southeast Asia, with several leading to massive reforms and regime change. These protests began as a response to widespread corruption, nepotism, economic inequality and mismanagement, authoritarianism, and democratic backsliding. The protests in Bangladesh in 2024 are widely cited as the first successful Gen Z revolution in the world, inspiring similar Gen Z-led protests in other Asian countries including Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, and the Maldives. Governments were overthrown in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal; while protests in Indonesia and Timor-Leste achieved reversals of unpopular policies.
Etymology
The term "Asian Spring" has been unofficially coined to describe these events, citing their similarities to the Arab Spring, though "Asian Uprising", "Gen Z protests", and "Gen Z revolutions" have also been used. Aditya Gowdara Shivamurthy used the term "South Asian Spring" for the Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi, Thailand, and Nepalese protests.Causes
Economic pressures
A central factor uniting many Generation Z protest movements in Asia is economic hardship and limited opportunities. Large youth populations in several countries face high rates of unemployment and underemployment, alongside rising living costs, contributing to a sense of precarity. Scholars have described these conditions as leaving young people in 'economically precarious' situations, struggling to secure stable employment or adequate wages. According to a 2024 six-country study by the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, 'unemployment and recession' ranked as the most pressing concern among Southeast Asian youth, with 89% of respondents expressing worry, followed by the 'widening socio-economic gap,' cited by around 85%. Persistent income inequality, often compounded by corruption, has reinforced perceptions of injustice. Analysts have observed that recent youth uprisings in South Asia have been driven primarily by material hardship, with poverty, inflation, and unmet basic needs intensifying public frustration and contributing to broader social unrest. A 2025 Carnegie Endowment analysis similarly identified widening wealth gaps and concerns over a bleak economic future as factors fueling youth activism and demands for relief from deepening social and economic inequalities. For example, in Sri Lanka, the 2022 protest movement emerged amid severe economic turmoil marked by surging inflation, acute shortages of fuel and medicine, and prolonged power outages in the aftermath of its economic crisis. The collapse of the national economy severely disrupted livelihoods and caused daily hardship for much of the population. Many of the predominantly young protesters viewed the crisis as the result of long-term economic mismanagement and were motivated by basic concerns of survival; for much of Sri Lanka's youth, politics had come to represent a struggle for survival, dignity, and the right to be heard.The persistent youth unemployment crisis has intensified these grievances. Despite post-COVID-19 pandemic economic recovery in some countries, stable and adequately paid jobs for young adults remain limited. Many members of Generation Z report feeling excluded from the benefits of economic growth, viewing it as a lost 'demographic dividend'. In South Asia and parts of Southeast Asia, large youth populations have not been matched by sufficient employment opportunities, resulting in growing frustration when economic expansion fails to generate jobs or when young people are confined to informal, insecure, and poorly remunerated work. An August 2024 report by the International Labour Organization observed that, although overall unemployment rates had improved following the COVID-19 pandemic, Asia-Pacific's economic anxieties among the youth continued to increase. Surveys cited in the report found that majorities of respondents expressed stress over job loss, job stability, and broader economic conditions, showing persistent uncertainty about their future prospects. Widespread economic precarity, compounded by rising costs of living for essentials such as fuel, food, and housing, has contributed to mounting dissatisfaction among Generation Z. In Nepal, youth anger crystallized around a viral image of a minister's son displaying luxury goods during an economic downturn, which was widely interpreted as emblematic of inequality in a country with a gross domestic product per capita below US$1,500 and where roughly four-fifths of the workforce is employed in the informal sector.
Socio-economic pressures have contributed to a perception among many members of Generation Z that they lack a secure future under existing conditions. In countries such as China, India, and across Southeast Asia, young people have reported being disproportionately affected by unaffordable housing and limited access to quality employment, often in contrast with the experiences of earlier generations. Public institutions are frequently viewed as unresponsive to youth unemployment and ineffective in addressing rising living costs, which bred cynicism and discontent. The weakening of upward mobility has left many young people frustrated, and such conditions have provided fertile ground for protest movements. When access to education, stable employment, and opportunities for advancement are perceived as unattainable, Generation Z has shown a greater willingness to engage in demonstrations to express grievances and demand change.
Quotaism, nepotism and lawmaker perks
Generation Z protests in several Asian countries have also been characterized as uprisings against entrenched elite rule, reflecting frustration with decades of corruption, quotaism, nepotism, and oligarchic dominance. Across South Asia, many young protesters have explicitly targeted what they describe as powerful political dynasties and a wealthy, discredited elite, whom they blame for undermining democracy and economic opportunity.In Sri Lanka, the Rajapaksa family's long-standing political dominance was a central target of the 2022 Aragalaya movement. Over the years, members of the family occupied key positions in government two brothers alternated as president and prime minister, another served as speaker of parliament, and several relatives held senior posts, prompting widespread accusations of nepotism and corruption. The resulting concentration of power was widely associated with policy mismanagement that contributed to the country's economic collapse. The Aragalaya protests were therefore viewed not only as a demand for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's resignation but as a broader revolt against systemic corruption and elite capture, with participants calling for a 'system change' and an end to cronyism and graft.
A comparable event unfolded in Bangladesh during the 2024 youth-led movement known as the "Student–People's Revolution." Initially triggered by opposition to a government job quota reserving 30% of civil service positions for certain groups, including descendants of war veterans, the protests reflected broader dissatisfaction with what participants saw as nepotistic and exclusionary governance. Demonstrators denounced corruption, favoritism, and what they perceived as an increasingly authoritarian and kleptocratic political system. Their demands soon expanded beyond the quota issue to calls for merit-based recruitment, free elections, and an end to political elitism. On social media and in the streets, Bangladeshi students condemned nepotism embedded in the reinstated civil-service quota that reserved 30% of jobs for descendants of independence fighters, arguing it disproportionately favored ruling-party loyalists and shut out merit amid high youth unemployment.
In Indonesia, student and youth-led protests in late August 2025 zeroed in on lawmakers' perks, mainly especially a Rp50 million/month housing allowance reportedly paid to all 580 DPR Parliament members since September 2024, triggering clashes outside Parliament in Jakarta on 25 August and spotlighting anger over elite privilege amid economic strain and youth unemployment. The allowance's legal basis had been set out earlier in the DPR letter which became a focal point in media and legal explainers as demonstrators pressed for repeal. On the onset of the killing of Affan Kurniawan, a deadly week of unrest, and the looting of houses owned by rich lawmakers, the law on controversial perks and curb overseas trips were revoked by president Prabowo under a move that was framed as a response to the mounting death toll and public outrage. Echoing the region's "perks" backlash, mid-September 2025 in Timor-Leste, thousands of mostly university students rallied in Dili against a budget item to buy 65 Toyota Prado SUVs for its MPs. The protests then pivoted to a broader demand to scrap lifetime pensions perks for lawmakers. Timorense youth protesters explicitly framed MPs as "self-serving" with lavish perks and marching with banners like "Stop thieves/stop corrupters," which cast lawmakers' perks as greedy and illegitimate in one of the region's poorest countries and issues of high inequality, malnutrition and unemployment.
In Nepal, recent youth-led protests focused on what demonstrators described as entrenched political elites and a pervasive culture of corruption and privilege. Protesters criticized officials' perks and allowances and railed against nepotism, alleging that positions and advantages go to friends and family rather than on merit. Public outrage intensified after reports circulated that the teenage daughter of a senior official had been chauffeured in a government vehicle that struck and injured a schoolgirl, an incident that became emblematic of perceptions that the 'children of political elites' acted with impunity. In Kathmandu, students carried school textbooks during demonstrations to symbolize the perceived futility of education in a system dominated by nepotism, expressing frustration that hard work and merit were often overshadowed by political connections. The motif fed a broader sentiment that meritocracy has been undermined by patronage, deepening generational anger. Analysts link this unrest to long-standing elite capture and insufficient inclusive development, while Gen-Z protesters cast their movement as a challenge to "business as usual" politics that benefits political power and resources to benefit a privileged few at the expense of the wider public.