If we just ask the older generation in our family, most of the changes they have felt most profoundly during most of their lives are the large appliances they use to live at home.
In the 1940s and 1950s, people relied on manual labor to make a living. In the 1970s, if you wanted to get a set of four major items, you had to save money and earn industrial tickets. In the 1980s and 1990s, color TVs and refrigerators slowly entered ordinary homes. Now, if you take out your mobile phone and click on the screen, the lights, air conditioners, and kitchenware in the whole house will all run automatically.
From grabbing tickets and queuing up to buy, to smart control of the whole house, the changes in home consumption of three generations are not just a change in the appearance of household objects, but a true reflection of the fact that our people’s lives are becoming more and more prosperous, and the country’s people’s livelihood is steadily improving.
All the data in the article are taken from the National Bureau of Statistics and authoritative research reports on the home appliance industry, which truly illustrates the changes in the lives of ordinary families over the past few decades.
1. The 1970s: If you have money, you have to have money, and the four major items are the top luxury items for the whole family
Nowadays, when you go to shopping malls and browse online shopping platforms, refrigerators, washing machines, and various smart home appliances are full of shelves. If you want, you can place an order and have it delivered to your door on the same day.
Going back to the 1970s, buying a bicycle, a sewing machine, a watch, and a radio were definitely big things that an ordinary working-class family would have to struggle for several years to achieve.
There is an old saying in that era: Money does not count, tickets are hard currency.
No matter how much salary I have saved, without industrial coupons or purchase coupons, no matter how rich I am, I can’t buy big-ticket items.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, the per capita disposable income of residents nationwide was only 171 yuan in 1978. The monthly salary of ordinary urban workers was more than 30 yuan, while the annual income of rural people was even lower.
A Shanghai brand watch sells for 120 yuan, which is enough for an ordinary worker to save for a year and a half without eating or drinking; a Forever or Phoenix bicycle costs around 160 yuan, which requires dozens of industrial tickets in addition to the money.
In those days, industrial tickets were allocated in small quantities by units based on headcount. A family could receive one bicycle purchase ticket per year, which was the envy of the entire compound.
At that time, you could get a complete set of four essential items for your wedding. In the eyes of your neighbors, you were considered a wealthy family, and you would have a special face when doing weddings.
In 1979, the total number of bicycles in the country was about 80 million, with an average of twelve people able to share one, and they were even more scarce in rural areas.
In many villages, more than a dozen households share a transistor radio. After dinner in the evening, the whole village gathers in front of a house to listen to the news and opera.
It can be seen from the sample survey data of that year that the number of household appliances owned by urban workers was relatively high, but in towns and rural areas, in the early 1970s and 1980s, less than half of the sewing machines and radios owned by 100 rural households.
At that time, people had a very simple way of thinking about spending money. They first had to eat and wear clothes, and large household appliances were considered luxuries.
I finally bought one, and it took me twenty or thirty years to mend it, and then the parents passed it on to their children after it was finished.
A sewing machine makes clothes and quilts, a bicycle goes out to visit relatives, a watch controls the time, and a radio understands the outside world. Four simple objects support the entire modern life of the older generation.
From the 1980s and 1990s to 2012: Tickets were completely withdrawn, and the new four major items were slowly sold in every household
After the reform and opening up, the production capacity of domestic factories increased year by year, and materials became more and more abundant. Food stamps and industrial purchase coupons that had been used for decades were gradually invalidated. People no longer had to collect tickets from everywhere to buy things. Home consumption ushered in the first major upgrade. The old four major items were slowly replaced by color TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, and tape recorders.
Compared with statistical data, from 1978 to 2000, the national per capita disposable income rose from 171 yuan to 6,280 yuan. People had more spare money, and the focus of consumption gradually shifted from filling their stomachs to improving their lives at home.
Black-and-white TVs became popular in the late 1980s. If anyone put a 14-inch black-and-white TV in their home, the yard would be crowded with neighbors watching TV at night.
In the 1990s, the prices of color TVs, double-door refrigerators, and semi-automatic washing machines gradually dropped, and ordinary salarymen could buy a new home appliance after saving two or three months’ salary.
Later, the country implemented the policy of bringing home appliances to the countryside to benefit the people, specifically subsidizing rural consumers to buy home appliances, which directly lowered the cost of purchasing home appliances in towns and villages.
Data show that in 2012, the number of refrigerators and washing machines per 100 households in rural areas across the country exceeded 80. Large appliances that were once high-end products have completely become daily necessities for every household.
The biggest change is that people now have a choice when buying things.
In the planning era, the people were passively divided as much as they could produce, and had no choice; after marketization, domestic and joint venture brands gathered together, covering all high, middle and low-end price ranges, and they could choose at will according to their own economic conditions.
People’s consumption concepts have also changed accordingly. They no longer pursue a home appliance that will last a lifetime. Ease of use, worry-free, and complete functions have become the first criteria for purchasing.
Our domestic home appliance manufacturing industry is developing rapidly by taking advantage of the trend of the times. The industrial chain is becoming more and more complete. The production cost of domestic products has dropped and the cost performance has improved. It not only meets domestic demand, but also is sold abroad in large quantities.
The price of domestic products is close to the people, so ordinary people can improve their living conditions with a small amount of money. This is also the fundamental reason for the rapid popularity of home appliances.
3. In the past decade or so, policies have continued to develop, and whole-house intelligence has entered ordinary people’s homes
In the past decade or so, the country has successively launched a series of policies to benefit the people, such as replacing old appliances with new ones, subsidies for green appliances, and intelligent renovation of old communities. People’s home consumption has once again upgraded, from purchasing single appliances to a complete set of intelligent layouts for the whole house. Remote control of appliances is no longer exclusive to the rich.
The latest public data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the per capita disposable income of residents across the country has exceeded 41,314 yuan, with the average per capita in urban areas exceeding 50,000 yuan and in rural areas more than 23,000 yuan. Compared with the actual income in 1978, the actual income has increased more than 70 times. Everyone has enough money to decorate their homes.
Based on CMM and IDC home appliance industry research, the overall domestic smart home market size will exceed RMB 1 trillion in 2025, and the retail sales of complete sets of smart home appliances will be close to 390 billion yuan. The proportion of newly built commercial buildings with built-in whole-house smart configurations exceeds 45%, and the penetration rate of smart renovation in old communities will reach 18%.
The penetration rate of smart door locks and sweeping robots exceeds 60%. The sales of smart toilets and aging-friendly health monitoring appliances have surged year by year. In the first half of 2026 alone, the sales of smart bathroom products increased by 44% year-on-year.
Benefiting the people’s subsidies are actually helping people save money. In many provinces, first-class energy-efficient air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing and drying machines enjoy purchase subsidies of up to 20%. In some areas, intelligent monitoring equipment for the elderly is also included in the subsidy list, with a maximum subsidy of 2,000 yuan for a single item.
In Zhejiang Province alone, home appliance replacement subsidies will drive more than 1.5 billion in consumption in 2025, and millions of families will use discounts to replace old appliances; Shandong, Ningxia and other places have specially introduced subsidies for smart home appliances for the elderly to facilitate the elderly to use smart devices at low cost.
The convenience of living today was unimaginable a few decades ago: leaving home with just one click, the whole house will be powered off and locked, and security will automatically turn on; on the way to get off work, you can remotely turn on the air conditioner and make an appointment to cook with your mobile phone; for elderly people living alone at home, smart mattresses and health bracelets can monitor body indicators in real time, and abnormal body data can be directly pushed to their children’s mobile phones.
Smart home appliances are no longer limited to big cities. Counties, towns and rural areas are replacing their homes with new ones. More and more families are choosing smart homes for the whole house. The dividends of technology are really sinking to the grassroots.
The consumption logic has changed from “just use whatever you can” in the past to the pursuit of comfort, safety and peace of mind.
Things are changing in the fourth and third generations, but the original intention of Chinese people to love their homes and live a life has never changed
From the older generation who saved their tickets and money to grab big items, to the parents who saved their wages to buy color TVs and refrigerators, our generation can easily equip the whole house with smart devices. The consumption span of three generations has condensed the progress of people’s livelihood in our country over the past few decades.
Incomes are rising year by year, industrial manufacturing is steadily getting stronger, national policies to benefit the people are implemented layer by layer, and domestic technology continues to make breakthroughs. The combination of several benefits has brought about earth-shaking changes in the home life of ordinary families.
Look back and understand the logic of development: in the early years, ticket shopping was limited by productivity and material shortages at the time; market-based popularization of home appliances was the result of reform and opening up, which liberated productivity; now, smart home appliances benefit thousands of households, and are the livelihood benefits brought about by the country’s high-quality development and technological innovation.
Over the past few decades, the styles of home appliances, shopping methods, and consumption levels have been changing, but the Chinese people’s desire to live their lives carefully and hope that their small homes will get better and better has not changed at all.
In the past, the whole family gathered around a black-and-white TV to watch TV shows, but now the whole family is watching TV dramas on the big screen in the smart living room, and can also video-connect with relatives who are working abroad. The form of entertainment has changed, and the happiness of reunion is exactly the same; in the past, washing clothes by hand with washboards and cooking with wood stoves consumed most of the free time, but now home appliances take care of the housework, and family members save a lot of time to chat with each other.
In the future, the country will continue to increase efforts to renovate old communities, subsidize green home appliances, and support aging-friendly smart products for the elderly. Affordable smart products will continue to sink into towns and villages. Regardless of age or income, everyone can enjoy the home convenience brought by technology.
Many people born in the 1970s and 1980s have witnessed with their own eyes the entire process from the ticket era to the smart era. The people born in the 90s and 00s have lived in an environment with complete electrical appliances since childhood.
Do you still have many old items in your home that were passed down from the older generation?
From old-fashioned large appliances to smart appliances, which appliance has really changed your daily life?
You are welcome to talk about your own real experiences in the comment area, forward it to the elders in your family, and recall the past years together.
