At a time when the country is facing?an all-time high unemployment rate and a rather new trend of youngsters preferring to have?no job rather than a low paying one,', another trend has cropped up in China.
The jobless rate for 16- to 24-year-old youths in China's urban areas hit an all-time high of 21.3% last month. Amid this, many Chinese youngsters are resorting to 'working' as full-time children.
Exhausted by the pressure to succeed as a photographer, Litsky Li accepted a better offer: quit work to become one of China¡¯s growing legions of children paid by their families to stay home.
21-year-old Li now spends her days grocery shopping for her family and caring for her grandmother. Her parents pay her a 'salary' of 6,000 yuan ($835) a month, which is considered a solid middle-class wage in her area.
¡°The reason why I am at home is because I can¡¯t bear the pressure of going to school or work,¡± said Li, a high school graduate. ¡°I don¡¯t want to compete intensely with my peers. So I choose to ¡®lie flat¡¯ completely,¡± she said, using a popular phrase that refers to eschewing grueling hours and traditional family values in favor of pursuing a simpler life.
¡°I don¡¯t necessarily need a higher paid job or a better life,¡± she added, as per a?CNN report.
But? Li is not alone. And it¡¯s not just dissatisfaction driving the phenomenon of ¡°full-time sons and daughters,¡± a label which first appeared on the popular Chinese social media site Douban late last year.
Most of the tens of thousands of young people identifying as such on social media say they¡¯re retreating home because they simply can¡¯t get work.
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Youth unemployment has joined a number of problems that China is facing including?tepid domestic consumption, a retreat by private industry and a struggling property market. These are becoming a major headache for China¡¯s leadership as the country¡¯s post-Covid recovery fizzles out.
And the problem may be much bigger than official data suggests.?Zhang Dandan, an associate professor at Peking University, wrote in an opinion piece last week for news outlet Caixin that if 16 million young people ¡°lying flat¡± at home or relying on their parents were included, and therefore not actively looking for work, the true unemployment rate for youth could reportedly have been as high as 46.5% in March.
On the Chinese social networking website Douban, about 4,000 members of a group called ¡°full-time children¡¯s work communication center¡± discuss topics related to their daily ¡°working¡± lives.
The buzzword has spread to other social media platforms. On Xiaohongshu, China¡¯s most popular lifestyle-sharing platform among younger people, there are currently more than 40,000 posts under the ¡°full-time sons and daughters¡± hashtag.
Primarily in their 20s, they say they¡¯re different from ¡°ken lao zu,¡± which roughly translates to ¡°the generation that eats the old,¡± a previous phenomenon popular among those born in the 1980s.
Those 30-somethings studied and pushed hard to get ahead in their careers, and often do little at home despite relying on family for help with rent and other expenses. By contrast, today¡¯s ¡°professional¡± children spend time with their parents and do housework in exchange for financial support.
¡°If you look at us from a different perspective, we are no different than the young people who have a job,¡± said Li, whose family supported her in her decision to drop out of the rat race.
¡°They go to work in cities and earn a monthly salary of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan ($419 to $559). But they can¡¯t support themselves at all. They still eat at their parents¡¯ house, live with them or have them pay for their apartments or cars. Their living expenses are partially paid by their parents,¡± she said.
Sociologists say China¡¯s traumatic experiences with strict pandemic measures have contributed to the number of young people radically rethinking their life goals and their parents supporting them.
¡°Mentally and psychologically, people in mainland China are still recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic,¡± said Fang Xu, a continuing lecturer at the University of California Berkeley.?¡°I believe the desire to spend quality [time] with your loved ones, the contemplation about the meaning of life or what are the most important things in life still lingers,¡± she said.
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Ya-wen Lei, a professor of sociology at Harvard University, said she expects the professional children phenomenon won¡¯t last long.?¡°The support they receive from their parents in this context is not surprising, as many Chinese parents assist their children with various aspects of life, such as housing, marriage expenses and childcare,¡± she said, adding that most young people are likely to eventually secure employment.
It¡¯s also not a viable solution to the jobs problem in China, said George Magnus, a research associate at the China Centre at Oxford University and SOAS University of London.
¡°It may be a short-term fix so that they have somewhere to live, jobs to do, and family income as a quid pro quo.¡±
But if young people are not in the labour market acquiring skills and looking for better opportunities, they may then become unemployable, either because they have been out of work for too long, or have not managed to stay at the sharp end of skills and training acquisition, Magnus said.
¡°This is a condition in which short-term dislocations, for example, in the labor market, become permanent,¡± he said.
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