“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. By contrast, today’s “professional” children spend time with parents and do housework in exchange for financial support. 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 rents and other expenses. 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. 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. The buzzword has spread to other social media platforms. On Douban, about 4,000 members of a group called “full-time children’s work communication center” discuss topics related to their daily “working” lives. One in 5 young people in Chinese cities are out of work. People attend a job fair in China's southwestern city of Chongqing on April 11, 2023. 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. And it’s not just dissatisfaction driving the phenomenon of “full-time sons and daughters,” a label which first appeared on popular Chinese social media site Douban late last year. “I don’t necessarily need a higher paid job or a better life,” she added. 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 want to compete intensely with my peers. “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.
Her parents pay her a salary of 6,000 yuan ($835) a month, which is considered a solid middle-class wage in her area. Li, 21, now spends her days grocery shopping for her family in the central city of Luoyang and caring for her grandmother, who has dementia.
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.
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