Young Chinese are ‘retiring’ in the countryside as China’s unemployment

Fed up with China’s employment situation, young people on the mainland are retreating to the countryside.

China’s Gen Z and millennials are increasingly documenting their rural day-to-day “retirement” lives on social media after declaring that they got laid off, quit or are simply jobless. These self-identified “retirees,” who often state they were born in the 90’s or 00’s in their profiles, post their journeys online as they embark on extended career breaks or remain unemployed.

Last year, a 22-year-old self-proclaimed retiree who goes by the alias of Wenzi Dada set up residence in a bamboo shack at the edge of a cliff in China’s mountainous Guizhou province. Wenzi, who previously held a variety of jobs in auto repair, construction and manufacturing told local media that he grew tired of dealing with machines every day and quit to return to his hometown. He tried to find a job there but was never satisfied with the options.

“As time goes by, I begin to think about the meaning of life. Life is not just about the prosperity of the city. The tranquility of the countryside is also a kind of beauty,” he wrote in his Douyin profile, according to a CNBC translation. Douyin is the sister app to ByteDance-owned TikTok and tailored to the Chinese market.

Since moving to the mountains, Wenzi uploads videos to Douyin account showing how he cooks, harvests vegetables and maintains his mountaintop hut.

Job hunting has been particularly difficult for young people as the Chinese economy struggles, said Chung Chi Nien, chair professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

A record 11.8 million college graduates entered the labor market this year, intensifying competition which has led to a “devaluation” of college degrees, the professor explained. For individuals with fewer credentials and experience, this has further lowered their odds of getting hired. 

China‘s youth unemployment rate in August hit a new record of 18.8%, the highest since the new system of record-keeping began in December. That’s up from 17.1% in July. The recent data came amid a slew of disappointing Chinese economic signals as the world’s second-largest economy continues to struggle with weak domestic demand and a downturn in the housing sector.

“If you add these factors together, it is not surprising that young people are choosing to ‘retreat’ or ‘retire’ to the countryside as it has become very challenging to find a job, especially good jobs in top-tier cities,” Chung told CNBC. 

Popular retreat destinations include Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan — provinces where the cost of living is a quarter of that in Shanghai.