No Job, No Marriage, No Child: Chinese Workers and the Curse of 35

When Sean Liang turned 30, he began to think about the curse of 35 – the widespread belief in China that white-collar workers like him face inevitable job insecurity after they reach that age. In the eyes of employers, the curse goes, they are more expensive than fresh graduates and not as willing to work overtime.

Mr. Liang, now 38, is a technology support professional turned personal trainer. He has been unemployed for much of the past three years, in part because of the pandemic and China’s slumping economy. But he believes the main reason is his age. He is too old for many employers, including the Chinese government limits the hiring age for most official positions at 35. If the Curse of 35 is a legend, it is backed up by some facts.

“I work out, so I look quite young for my age,” he said in an interview. “But in the eyes of society, people like me are outdated.”

China’s post-pandemic economic upswing has hit a wall, and the Curse of 35 has become the talk of the Chinese internet. It’s not clear how the phenomenon started, and it’s hard to know how much truth there is in it. But there is no doubt that the labor market is weak and ageism not against the law reigns in China. That’s a double whammy for workers in their mid-30s who must make big decisions about careers, marriage and children.

“Too old to work at 35 and too young to retire at 60,” said a viral online post – meaning people in the prime working age have no prospects and the elderly may need to stay work like the government is consider raising the retirement age. The post continues, “Stay away from home ownership, marriage, children, car ownership, traffic, and drugs, and you will own happiness, freedom, and time.”

Mr. Liang has since moved from Guangzhou in southern China back to his home village because he was unable to pay his rent of less than $100 a month. He is not married; neither did three of his cousins, all around his age. He said only people with steady jobs, such as civil servants and teachers, could afford to start a family.

Growing competition in the job market is one reason young Chinese are delaying marriages, said an official with the national health commission, which oversees demographic policy. quoted as stated by the Chinese news media last year.

It’s hard to trust employment data from the Chinese government, which counts everyone who has worked one hour a week. That low bar has kept the urban unemployment rate at just over 5 percent for much of this year, better than in 2019.

Business figures tell a different story. In the first three months of this year, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu, one of the country’s largest internet companies and highest-paying employers, hired about 9 percent fewer workers than during their hiring peak during the pandemic, according to their financial reports. Some of China’s largest real estate developers have cut their workforce by 30, 50 or even 70 percent by 2022.

Wang Mingyuan, an economist in Beijing, wrote in a widely circulated publication in the late 1970s, “The coming years will be the most challenging time for employment since the reform and opening up”. article. He noted that about 50 million people aged 16 to 40 could be unemployed by 2028, adding: “It could spark a series of deeper crises.”

In 2022, the number of marriage registrations fell 10.5 percent from a year earlier, the lowest number since China began releasing the data in 1986. The country’s birth rate fell to an all-time low last year and its population shrank for the first time since 1961, the end of the Great Famine.

Ageism affects all older workers, but those in their mid-thirties may feel it most acutely because they are experiencing it for the first time.

Flynn Fan started to fear 35 when he was 30. He knew he might be passed over for work in a few years, but until then his problem had been overtime.

At his last company, he said, most of his co-workers were either single, like him, or married with no kids. Their overtime was getting out of hand. For three months in 2021, Mr. Fan said, he was off work at 11 p.m. at the earliest. He started taking anti-anxiety drugs.

At the end of last year, he and most of his colleagues were fired from an artificial intelligence company in Shanghai.

In the past six months, he has sent his resume to more than 300 companies and made 10 interviews without an offer. Now he’s looking for jobs that pay 20 to 30 percent less. He also started looking in other cities near Shanghai.

At 35 years old, he feels young. But to society, he said, 35 is like a “plague.”

Cici Zhang is 32 and has already been told by employers that she is too old. She showed a screenshot of a job opening at a company that sells maternity products, with an age limit of less than 32 years. One of her former supervisors told her that he could replace her with a recent graduate after three months of training.

Chinese companies like to follow the latest trends rather than perfect what they already have, she said. So experience and expertise are not the qualities they value the most.‌

As a woman, Ms. Zhang faces additional layers of discrimination. Since she was 25, she has answered questions from employers about when she planned to have children. If she answered that she and her husband had no such plans, she was asked what their parents thought of their decision.

After being fired in September, Ms. Zhang, a marketing professional, messaged more than 3,000 companies, sent her resume to more than 300, and received fewer than 10 job interviews. Last month, she was finally offered a job at a small company.

She accepted the job and felt no excitement or happiness about it.

“I used to have expectations. I wanted promotions, pay raises and a better life,” she said. “Now I have none. I just want to survive.”

She and her husband feel they cannot afford to have children. They have a mortgage and could barely make ends meet when she was out of work, fearing he too would lose his job.

Their fears make them question whether it is fair to have children. Ms. Zhang quoted a popular saying on the Internet: “If the birth of a child is to inherit one’s toil, panic and poverty, then not giving birth is also a form of kindness.”

Mr. Liang, the 38-year-old tech professional, said something similar. He loves children, but does not believe that he can give them a good life. Like many Chinese who grew up in rural areas, he was raised by his grandparents while his parents worked in cities. He wouldn’t want his children to have that life.

In addition, he must first find a job. Even before the pandemic, he was asked during an interview why he was applying for a tech support position at his age. He showed me his local county government’s job openings: the age requirement for all positions was 18 to 35.

When I remarked that 35 must weigh like a mountain, Mr. Liang replied, “It’s the abyss.”