They don't want to work in factories or farms, but at the same time, the white-collar lifestyle remains far out of reach.
For the 7.27 million Chinese students who graduated from college last year -- a number roughly 2.5 times the US figure -- the job market can be brutal: low salaries, long hours and the knowledge that there are millions of other people just waiting to replace you. Those realities look even harsher when you compare the bargain-basement salaries earned by the average Chinese young adult with the exorbitant wealth of China's well-connected。
"It's just ruthless out here," said Wu Shaomei, a chemistry master's student at Northwest University in Xi'an, as she surveyed the crowds of college grads vying for telemarketing jobs at a local job fair last week. "Everywhere you look in this city there are rich people driving luxury cars, but I could work these jobs a whole lifetime and never make enough to buy one of those tires."
China's glut of college grads has been described in national media as a triumph of state-orchestrated education expansion, but it's also created an expectation gap when it comes to the job market. New graduates, many of them first-generation students who grew up on farms, were raised to believe a college degree was a sure route to a comfortable life. But at end-of-summer job fairs, many of these graduates are finding themselves offered salaries lower than what factory workers earn。
In the early years of the Great Recession, some American youth saw the grim job market as an opportunity for "funemployment," but China has coined a different term: "gnawing on the old." The term refers to Chinese youth who don't earn enough to pay the bills, and thus end up "gnawing" through their parents' savings. With average starting salaries of $400 per month and just one day off a week, recent grads in major cities often have little hope of achieving anything resembling financial independence early in their careers。
"This kind of rapid expansion has never been seen -- not just in China, but anywhere in the world," said Xu Qingshan, a professor of education at Wuhan University's College of Education Science. "The fundamental reason behind the bad job market for graduates has been this huge expansion in enrollment."
Much of that growth has come from rural students who are often the first in their family to leave the farm. At school, they may encounter a cosmopolitan world their parents never dreamed of -- but once graduation rolls around, they face an even more grueling job search than their urban peers。
According to a study by Tian Feng of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the unemployment rate among college graduates from urban families is about 12 percent, while for graduates from rural backgrounds it's 30 percent. And the gap looks even wider when considering that recent graduates from urban backgrounds earn around 20 percent more than their rural peers。
"The urban-rural employment gap for college graduates is one of the clearest expressions of the hardening of barriers to social mobility," Tian told China National Radio in February. "This is having a major impact on social equity."
Wang Junying grew up in Red Star Village in rural Sichuan. As a middle school student, she spent her spare time collecting cow dung for the family's furnace, and in high school her summer job consisted of tending the flock of ducks that would later be sold to pay her tuition. When it came time for the college entrance exam, Wang's parents encouraged her, but also presented her with a backup plan。
"Before the test my dad told me, 'Don't worry. If you can't test into college I'll buy you a tractor,'" Wang recalled. "Back then, my only thought was that I've got to do whatever it takes to get into college. I just didn't want to drive a tractor."
After Wang finished a business English degree at a community college in Xi'an, her mother offered to arrange a teaching job for her at the village elementary school. But the position came with one hitch: It would take an $11,000 bribe just to secure the position, which paid around $4,000 per year。
Growth in decent jobs has lagged far behind the non-stop bumper crops of college grads, and competition for scarce positions often comes down to family connections and cold hard cash. China is almost two years into one of its most intense corruption crackdowns in decades, but young Chinese job-seekers still report being extorted for huge sums of money that dwarf their would-be salaries。
Knowing her farming family would have trouble paying the needed money, Wang remained in Xi'an and eventually found a job teaching English for about $300 a month -- a salary comparable to what she would have earned at the other job, without the burden of the accompanying bribe。
The pay-to-play nature of China's job market means that while wealthy urban youth can "gnaw" on their parents' money and networks to get ahead, young men and women from the countryside are often left with nothing but middling diplomas。
據(jù)美國(guó)《赫芬頓郵報(bào)》網(wǎng)站9月26日?qǐng)?bào)道，中國(guó)的畢業(yè)生們不想去做工或種地，但白領(lǐng)生活方式始終遙不可及。
美媒稱，對(duì)今年畢業(yè)的727萬(wàn)中國(guó)大學(xué)生來(lái)說(shuō)，就業(yè)市場(chǎng)可能十分嚴(yán)峻：薪水低，工時(shí)長(zhǎng)，數(shù)百萬(wàn)其他人隨時(shí)等著頂替你。若把中國(guó)普通年輕人的微薄工資與那些有門(mén)路中國(guó)人的巨額財(cái)富相比，這些現(xiàn)實(shí)就愈發(fā)殘酷了。
西安市西北大學(xué)[微博]化學(xué)系碩士生吳曉梅(音)上周參加了當(dāng)?shù)氐囊粋�(gè)招聘會(huì)，看著眼前爭(zhēng)奪電信營(yíng)銷崗位的大學(xué)生人群，她感嘆：“形勢(shì)太無(wú)情了，在這座城市里，放眼望去到處都是開(kāi)豪車的有錢(qián)人，而我可能從事這些工作一輩子也買(mǎi)不起那些車的一個(gè)輪胎。”
國(guó)家媒體稱大學(xué)畢業(yè)生供過(guò)于求是政府?dāng)U招計(jì)劃的成就，但它也造成了就業(yè)市場(chǎng)上的期望差距。新畢業(yè)生當(dāng)中有很多人是在農(nóng)村長(zhǎng)大的，他們從小被灌輸?shù)男拍钍牵荷狭舜髮W(xué)就能過(guò)上好日子。但在暑期的招聘會(huì)上，很多這種畢業(yè)生發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們能得到的薪水比工人的工資還低。
在大蕭條初期，一些美國(guó)年輕人把就業(yè)市場(chǎng)低迷視作當(dāng)“失業(yè)快樂(lè)族”的機(jī)會(huì)，但中國(guó)有另外一個(gè)詞：“啃老”。這個(gè)詞是指中國(guó)年輕人入不敷出，于是要“啃”父母的積蓄。大城市近年的大學(xué)畢業(yè)生平均起始工資為每月400美元，根本沒(méi)有希望在就業(yè)之初就實(shí)現(xiàn)什么經(jīng)濟(jì)獨(dú)立。
武漢大學(xué)[微博]教育科學(xué)學(xué)院教授胥青山說(shuō)：“這種快速擴(kuò)張不僅在中國(guó)，在全世界任何地方都是前所未有的，就業(yè)形勢(shì)不好的根本原因就是這種擴(kuò)招。”
新增大學(xué)畢業(yè)生有相當(dāng)大一部分來(lái)自農(nóng)村，通常是家里第一個(gè)脫離種地的人。在學(xué)校，他們也許面對(duì)著父輩做夢(mèng)都沒(méi)想過(guò)的大都會(huì)世界，而一旦畢業(yè)來(lái)臨，他們找工作的難度遠(yuǎn)甚于城里同齡人。
根據(jù)中國(guó)社科院社會(huì)學(xué)所研究員田豐的調(diào)查，城市家庭出身的大學(xué)畢業(yè)生的失業(yè)率約為12%，而農(nóng)村家庭出身的則為30%。如果考慮到最近城市背景的大學(xué)畢業(yè)生比農(nóng)村背景的畢業(yè)生薪水高出20%，差距看起來(lái)就顯得更大了。
田豐說(shuō)：“大學(xué)畢業(yè)生就業(yè)的城鄉(xiāng)差異就是當(dāng)前社會(huì)流動(dòng)固化的一個(gè)具體表現(xiàn)，也是最為突出的表現(xiàn)之一。這極大地影響到了社會(huì)公平。”
王俊英(音)出生在四川一個(gè)小村莊。王俊英說(shuō)：“高考
王俊英去了西安一所大專學(xué)習(xí)商務(wù)英語(yǔ)，畢業(yè)后，母親提出給她找一個(gè)在小學(xué)教書(shū)的工作。不過(guò)這個(gè)職位不是白來(lái)的：家里要拿出6萬(wàn)多元錢(qián)走關(guān)系，而這個(gè)職位的年薪不過(guò)兩萬(wàn)多元。
體面的工作崗位的增加數(shù)量遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)趕不上一茬又一茬畢業(yè)的大學(xué)生的人數(shù)，對(duì)于一些稀缺崗位的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)往往最終成了家庭關(guān)系網(wǎng)和財(cái)力的比拼。中國(guó)幾十年來(lái)最猛烈的反腐行動(dòng)已開(kāi)展近兩年時(shí)間，但是年輕的求職者們?nèi)匀灰鎸?duì)比他們可能得到的薪水高出一大截的敲詐勒索。
王俊英知道家里很難拿出那么一大筆錢(qián)，于是她留在了西安，并最終找到了一份工作，每月薪水將近2000元，這與家里幫她聯(lián)系的小學(xué)教師的職位相當(dāng)，但沒(méi)有走關(guān)系帶來(lái)的沉重負(fù)擔(dān)。
中國(guó)就業(yè)市場(chǎng)的這種現(xiàn)狀意味著出身富裕城市家庭的年輕人或許可以靠“啃”父母的金錢(qián)和人脈取得成功，可是來(lái)自農(nóng)村的年輕人除了一紙文憑外，往往一無(wú)所有。
前，我爸爸對(duì)我說(shuō)：‘別擔(dān)心，考不上大學(xué)我就給你買(mǎi)臺(tái)拖拉機(jī)。’那時(shí)，我唯一的想法就是我無(wú)論如何都要上大學(xué)。我就是不想開(kāi)拖拉機(jī)。”
