SAD: Young Chinese adults can’t find work. Now many have a new job description: ‘Full-time children.’

As China’s economy deteriorates and job opportunities dry up, the concept of becoming a professional son or daughter, which started circulating on a popular Chinese internet forum in December, has taken off.

“Increasingly, when young people look around, there is almost no one they can rely on except their parents,” said Yunxiang Yan, a UCLA anthropology professor, noting that bonds have been strengthening between parents and children as family sizes shrink.

“It’s more complicated than an economic downturn, but the economic downturn is definitely the trigger,” Yan said.

It’s unclear how many people are taking part in the “full time children” phenomenon, though it’s become a prevalent and divisive topic online, with related hashtags receiving more than 40 million views on China’s Instagram-like app Xiaohongshu.

That this is happening while China’s working-age population is already shrinking makes China’s official figures about economic growth even more difficult to believe.