Now, youth get salaries to become 'full-time children' at home in China

In a latest trend, the Chinese youth have started quitting work to become one of China’s growing legions of children paid by their families to stay home, CNN reported.

Twenty-one-year-old Li is now spending her days taking care of her grandma, who has dementia, and grocery shopping for her family in the capital city of Luoyang. Her parents pay her a monthly salary of 6,000 yuan (about Dh3,080), which is considered a respectable middle-class wage in her community.

“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, adding, “I don’t want to compete intensely with my peers. So I choose to ‘lie flat’ completely,” she said.

“I don’t necessarily need a higher-paid job or a better life,” she added.

Li is not alone. Furthermore, the concept of "full-time sons and daughters," a label that initially cropped up on the popular Chinese social networking platform Douban late last year, isn't solely motivated by frustration, as per CNN.

The vast majority of the tens of thousands of young people who identify as such on social media claim they are returning to their homes because they are unable to find employment.

In metropolitan regions, the unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24 reached a record-high 21.3 per cent last month.

As the nation's post-Covid recovery fizzles out, youth unemployment has joined a number of headwinds, including lacklustre domestic consumption, a retreat by private enterprise, and a faltering real estate market.

Other social media sites now use the buzzword. The hashtag "full-time sons and daughters" is presently used in more than 40,000 posts on Xiaohongshu, China's most popular lifestyle website among younger people, according to CNN.

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