Young people shut out of the labour market or burned out from overwork are being hired by their parents to do housework and be on hand whenever needed.
In recent months, the hashtags #FullTimeDaughter and #FullTimeSon have been trending on Chinese social media platforms, attracting millions of views. They refer to adult children who, due to unemployment, are hired by their parents mainly to do housework and be on hand whenever needed. Youth unemployment has become a serious challenge for China, the world’s second-largest economy, especially after three years of “zero-Covid” restrictions weighed heavily on growth. The jobless rate among people ages 16 to 24 was a record 21.3% in June, the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Monday.
Similar figures have been reported in countries such as Italy and Sweden, while in Spain and Greece they are even higher. In the U.S., the youth unemployment rate was 7.5% in June, according to the Federal Reserve. Many full-time children have posted about their experiences online. More than 4,000 have gathered on Douban, an IMDb-like site that allows people to form communities akin to Facebook groups, to discuss being full-time children.
As more people declare themselves full-time children, a debate has emerged about whether it is really a profession. “Compared to previous years, young people who are now unemployed and stayed at home to study for exams have less confidence that they will succeed in their exam preparation and job hunting,” Lu Xi, an assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told NBC News via email. “Psychologically, the term ‘full-time children’ allows room for denial and self-deprecation, which make it more acceptable to many.” Lu said some Chinese state media organizations are trying to “rationalize” and “glorify” the emergence of full-time children as “filial piety.” No matter the “beautifications,” he said, “the underlying essence is still unemployment, and nothing else.”
A job fair in Qingzhou, China, last week. Youth unemployment was a record 21.3% in June, according to official data.CFOTO / Future Publishing via Getty Images Mao Xuxin, principal economist at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in Britain, said it was a “worrying” sign for young people if they are choosing to become full-time children as “it is very hard for them to get out of it and return to society.” In recent years, Mao said, young people in China have started looking for less demanding, more short-term jobs. Then came the rise of the “lying flat” movement, which embraces doing the bare minimum to get by rather than working relentlessly. Now, he said, some have taken the next step by asking their parents for help.
NBC News
