China's 'full-time children': What does it say about the economy?

China is seeing a new trend – the rise of ‘full-time children’. These young people spend their days looking after their parents. But what are ‘full-time children’ exactly? And what does this say about China’s economy? Let’s take a closer look: What are ‘full-time children’? ‘Full-time children’ are people in their 20s or even 30s who are either burned out or unemployed. These young men and women now spend their days caring for their aged parents  – preparing meals, washing dishes and doing chores – in exchange for an allowance, rent, or a place to live. Speaking to BBC, 29-year-old Julie said she ‘lived life like a walking corpse’. Julie quit her game developer job in April – where she worked 16-hour days – in order to look after her parents.

Julie, whose parents pay her daily expenses, now spends her time doing their household chores.

However, she has drawn the line at their offer of a monthly wage of 2,000 yuan (Rs 22,000). Speaking to The China Project, 33-year-old Huang – a former project manager at a big ecommerce company – explained his reasons for becoming a ‘full-time adult son’. “There’s this societal expectation of me going down the path of buying an apartment, getting married, having kids, and living this typical upper-middle-class lifestyle,” he said. “It’s like playing a video game and there are a string of bosses to defeat. Whenever I wanted to pat myself on the back for how much I’ve achieved, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much more I still needed to do. To hit those milestones, I have to work harder and probably still need financial support from my parents.” Julie and Huang’s stories aren’t surprising given China’s work culture – known as “996” where working 9 am to 9 pm six days a week is very much normal – disregards the concept of a work-life balance. [caption id=“attachment_12825702” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Chinese jobseekers queue up to enter an employment fair in Hefei, east China’s Anhui province. Jobs are not easy to find in the country’s weak job market after the pandemic. File photo/AFP[/caption] But others are far more sanguine. Angela Qian told the website said she returned to her parents’ home in Panzhihua after leaving her position as a human resources assistant. Angela said she was “helping around the house” while trying to get a government job. “I’m not just mooching off of my mom and dad. I run errands for my family and satisfy my parents’ emotional needs. It’s like a real profession.” But not everyone is as lucky as Julie, Huang and Angela. The website Sixth Tone quoted the story of a woman who returned to China after completing her master’s degree in Australia. Unable to find work, she moved back into her parents’ home and became a ‘full-time daughter’. While things were fine initially, the relationship soon deteriorated. When she asked if her parents wanted her help, they replied, “Do you think we need you to clean the house, buy groceries, and wash the pots? We pay you 3,000 yuan a month so you don’t feel embarrassed. Full-time daughter? More like a deadbeat daughter.” Others are just plain embarrassed. “These three years I am either taking my father or mother to see the doctor. I am not earning any money and I rely on my parents. It is quite shameful and therefore I don’t have any social life apart from chatting online,” an internet user wrote on a forum according to SCMP. What does this say about China’s economy? That this highlights China’s twin problems of unemployment and an increasingly aging population. The development comes amid youth unemployment hitting eye-watering highs in China. China’s National Bureau of Statistics on Monday said unemployment hit a record-high of 21.3 per cent.

This is the third straight month that figure remained over 20 per cent.

According to the BBC, more than 1 in 5 between the 16-24 age group are unemployed in China. Some experts say this ought to send warning bells to the establishment. Speaking to SCMP, Liu Yuanchun, president of the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, warned that youth unemployment has become a structural problem that needs to be addressed now or it may turn into a political problem. Dan Wang, chief economist at China’s Hang Seng Bank, earlier told BBC these developments “demand more direct policy responses, because this group of the population is quite vocal online.” Others think worries are overblown. “This phenomenon itself is not new,” Biao Xiang, a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oxford, told The China Project. “Reversed inter-generational asset transfer (from elderly parents to adult children) in both savings and labor contributions (e.g., grandparents looking after grandchildren) has been very important for young adults to form their own families.” Angela told the website that there are others like her. “I had this one childhood friend who was always at the top of her class and eventually got admitted to Tongji University,” Qian said. “When I met up with her at a local hotpot restaurant earlier this year, she told me she was sort of doing the same thing. I was genuinely shocked to hear that.” Meanwhile, the jobs numbers are likely to get even more dire. Bloomberg quoted NBS spokesman Fu Linghui as saying the July number would likely be even higher. Fu said this is because youth are wrapping up their education and searching for jobs. Beijing says around 12 million students – a record – are expected to graduate this year. Fu said Beijing is focusing on youth employment and is making efforts to put young people in a “more prominent position” – particularly on recent graduates and those starting their own businesses. Fu added that China needs to make efforts to “stabilise” the situation and that the rate will likely begin declining post-August. It remains to be seen whether the trend of ‘full-time children’ catches on. With inputs from agencies