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Xinhua News Agency

'Boomerang kids' a burden on parents

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Xiao Zhang, a member of the mainland's growing legion of 'kidults', left home to go to university and landed a job paying 2,000 yuan a month after graduation. Now he's back home, living with his parents, after quitting his job.

A recent study by China's Research Institute for the Elderly showed that about 30 per cent of adults, defined on the mainland as those over the age of 18, live at home, compared with only 7 per cent in the United States.

Most 'kidults' believed they had a right to stay in their parents' home as long as they wanted to and that their parents had an obligation to provide for them, the research found.

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'My son quit his job because he said the pay sucked and there was not much room there for his personal development,' Xinhua quoted Xiao Zhang's mother, Zhang Baoguo, as saying.

'Since he is jobless now we have to support him with our income.'

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Mrs Zhang said she was looking for jobs for her 20-something son, who just 'sits around at home and plays online games all day long'.

China's one-child policy should take much of the blame, according to mainland educators.

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