From Overseas Press

China's young college grads toil in 'ant tribes'

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-06-28 14:24

"Unlike slums in South America or Southeast Asia, these villages are populated with educated young people as opposed to laborers or street peddlers," says Lian, who teaches at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing.

The Chinese born after 1980 are among the most privileged generation in China's long history. Living after the communist government gave up the radical politics that tossed their parents and grandparents between chaos and penury, they have known only ever-rising levels of prosperity.

In their lifetimes, gleaming new office towers have remade China's cities. Hundreds of millions have been lifted from poverty. Travel abroad, private cars and apartments and a university education—all once the preserve of the elite—are increasingly common.

Vibrant megacities such as Beijing and Shanghai are the epitome of this good life. So the ant generation comes, bringing its aspirations.

But their very abundance keeps entry-level salaries low, while housing and other costs rise. Real estate prices have doubled in just three years in major cities, outpacing a 40 percent increase in urban wages from 2005 to 2009.

"This is the biggest struggle for China's young generation today," says Liu Neng, a sociology professor at Beijing University. "People in their 40s and 50s, now leaders in society, have already experienced hardships, but it's the younger generation's turn to face challenges before they become part of the country's elite."

When it rains or snows in Tangjialing, the dirt-covered streets become slurries of mud. On work days, legs and purses spill out the doors and windows of crammed buses.

"Do you still have seats left?" a skinny bespectacled man asks the driver of a minivan shuttle to a nearby office park. The driver says "yes" and pops open the back. The man gets in, taking a place on the floor sandwiched among four others.

To save her $300 a month salary as a data entry clerk, Shang Meirong showers only once a week in the winter and three times a week in the summer in Tangjialing's communal bathhouse, which costs 70 cents per use.