Graduate, employed Chinese ask parents for money

BEIJING - Nearly four out of 10 college-educated youths in China fail to make ends meet despite being employed and ask their parents to help them out, a study says.

Thirty-eight percent of young adults working in big cities said they have to ask their parents for money while 86.6 percent say they are suffering from the “pressures of living”, according to a survey by the China Youth Daily.

The survey polled 4,687 people. The majority of respondents do not belong to the “NEET” group (not in education, employment or training). Instead, all of them have received a college education and are currently employed.

“A tradition in China is that parents should make a better life for their children,” Lu Yilong, a professor with Renmin University, was quoted as saying.

“The tradition has an advantage in that young people can have better conditions for their development. But young people shouldn’t depend on this advantage. Instead, they should further promote themselves on the basis of favourable conditions,” he said.

As for the money from their parents, 52 percent of the respondents say they use it to purchase a home. Some 46.3 percent use their parents’ money for weddings and 17.3 percent use it to buy cars, while 14.2 percent use it for living expenses, 13.6 percent for raising children and 10.9 percent for renting apartments.

“Though I believe all adults should be self-reliant, it’s ok for parents to help their child buy a house,” said Wang Tianxiang, a 25-year-old Beijing resident.

“After all, unaffordable houses are a nationwide problem,” he said.

The leading class has guided the overall consumption in society, driving up the appetite of all other classes, said Yan Ye, a professor with the North China Institute of Science and Technology.

“However, with incomplete social security and high expectations, most people feel the pressures of living,” Yan said. “That’s exactly what we call the ’sandwiched class’.”

In the survey, 86.6 percent of the respondents say they feel the pressures of living and 46.4 percent think these pressures are extremely high.

The pressure descends with an increase in income.

The survey also shows that life pressures have passed from the young working people to their parents’ generation. Among the respondents, 46.9 percent are forced to live with their parents. Moreover, 73.2 percent of the respondents say their parents are cutting their own expenditures to support them.