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《赫芬頓郵報》網(wǎng)站9月26日報道，中國的畢業(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，對今年畢業(yè)的727萬中國大學(xué)生來說，就業(yè)市場可能十分嚴峻：薪水低，工時長，數(shù)百萬其他人隨時等著頂替你。若把中國普通年輕人的微薄工資與那些有門路中國人的巨額財富相比，這些現(xiàn)實就愈發(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?shù)氐囊粋�招聘會，看著眼前爭奪電信營銷崗位的大學(xué)生人群，她感嘆：“形勢太無情了，在這座城市里，放眼望去到處都是開豪車的有錢人，而我可能從事這些工作一輩子也買不起那些車的一個輪胎。”
國家媒體稱大學(xué)畢業(yè)生供過于求是政府擴招計劃的成就，但它也造成了就業(yè)市場上的期望差距。新畢業(yè)生當中有很多人是在農(nóng)村長大的，他們從小被灌輸?shù)男拍钍牵荷狭舜髮W(xué)就能過上好日子。但在暑期的招聘會上，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，一些美國年輕人把就業(yè)市場低迷視作當“失業(yè)快樂族”的機會，但中國有另外一個詞：“啃老”。這個詞是指中國年輕人入不敷出，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，根本沒有希望在就業(yè)之初就實現(xiàn)什么經(jīng)濟獨立。
武漢大學(xué)[微博]教育科學(xué)學(xué)院教授胥青山說：“這種快速擴張不僅在中國，在全世界任何地方都是前所未有的，就業(yè)形勢不好的根本原因就是這種擴招。”
新增大學(xué)畢業(yè)生有相當大一部分來自農(nóng)村，通常是家里第一個脫離種地的人。在學(xué)校，他們也許面對著父輩做夢都沒想過的大都會世界，而一旦畢業(yè)來臨，他們找工作的難度遠甚于城里同齡人。
根據(jù)中國社科院社會學(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%，差距看起來就顯得更大了。
田豐說：“大學(xué)畢業(yè)生就業(yè)的城鄉(xiāng)差異就是當前社會流動固化的一個具體表現(xiàn)，也是最為突出的表現(xiàn)之一。這極大地影響到了社會公平。”
王俊英(音)出生在四川一個小村莊。王俊英說：“高考
王俊英去了西安一所大專學(xué)習(xí)商務(wù)英語，畢業(yè)后，母親提出給她找一個在小學(xué)教書的工作。不過這個職位不是白來的：家里要拿出6萬多元錢走關(guān)系，而這個職位的年薪不過兩萬多元。
體面的工作崗位的增加數(shù)量遠遠趕不上一茬又一茬畢業(yè)的大學(xué)生的人數(shù)，對于一些稀缺崗位的競爭往往最終成了家庭關(guān)系網(wǎng)和財力的比拼。中國幾十年來最猛烈的反腐行動已開展近兩年時間，但是年輕的求職者們?nèi)匀灰鎸Ρ人麄兛赡艿玫降男剿叱鲆淮蠼氐那迷p勒索。
王俊英知道家里很難拿出那么一大筆錢，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，但沒有走關(guān)系帶來的沉重負擔。
中國就業(yè)市場的這種現(xiàn)狀意味著出身富裕城市家庭的年輕人或許可以靠“啃”父母的金錢和人脈取得成功，可是來自農(nóng)村的年輕人除了一紙文憑外，往往一無所有。
前，我爸爸對我說：‘別擔心，考不上大學(xué)我就給你買臺拖拉機。’那時，我唯一的想法就是我無論如何都要上大學(xué)。我就是不想開拖拉機。”
