After lifting restrictions to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic, the Chinese economy faces many difficulties and challenges as domestic consumer spending becomes gloomy, industrial output declines, the real estate market continues to freeze... causing the unemployment rate, especially among young people, to skyrocket.
According to a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the unemployment rate among those aged 16 to 24 rose to a record 21.3% in June 2023, accounting for more than one-fifth of the country's young workforce.
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| The unemployment rate among young Chinese is on the rise. (Source: CNN) |
"Full-time childcare"
Struggling to find work, tens of thousands of young Chinese have chosen to stay home and help their parents with housework and "receive a salary" from their parents. Recently, the hashtag #FullTimeChildren has become a popular trend on Chinese social media platforms.
There are about 4,000 members on the "Full-time Sons" forum on the Northeast Asian country's social media platform Douban, and more than 40,000 posts with the hashtag #full-timesons, girls on the most popular lifestyle sharing platform Xiaohongshu.
During unemployment, some young people have chosen this lifestyle to escape work pressure and reduce living expenses.
Lisky Li, 21, chose to give up her job as a photographer to “be a full-time son” and was paid 6,000 yuan (about $835) a month by her parents, which is also the average income in China.
Li's daily work is to go shopping and take care of her grandmother who has dementia at home.
Li shared: “I chose to stay at home because I couldn’t stand the pressure of going to school or going to work. I absolutely didn’t want to compete with my peers. So I chose to ‘lie still’ completely.
I don't necessarily need a higher-paying job or a more stable life. I'm just as confident as any other young person with a job."
Li is not alone, and more and more young people in China are pursuing this lifestyle. The trend of “lying flat” or “let it rot” is gradually becoming popular, encouraging young people to express their frustration and feelings of fatigue with the pressures of life.
Photos have been circulating on social media showing students lying on the ground in their graduation gowns with dejected looks.
Should only be a temporary solution
According to SCMP , most young people and parents see this lifestyle as a temporary solution when there are no other viable options.
Following the “lie still” and “let it rot” trends, economists fear that the “full-time childcare” trend among young Chinese could continue to lead to a vicious cycle of unemployment, hindering their social integration and future job prospects.
George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University and SOAS University of London, said this was not a viable solution to China's unemployment and employment problems.
This expert commented: “That can only be a short-term, temporary solution for young people to have a place to live, a job and an income. But if they do not enter the labor market to equip themselves with skills and find a better environment, young people may fall behind and face unemployment later due to not being able to work for a long time or lacking skills, and the knowledge they have learned in school will be lost."
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