Strange bedfellows: China’s youth share beds with strangers to cover rent in big cities as living costs and unemployment bite
- Report finds more than 80 per cent of young people want to keep rent below 30 per cent of salary
- ‘Bedmates’ often have rules like: no snoring, sleepwalking, or inviting romantic guests into shared space
An unusual new budgeting trend is emerging in China’s largest cities; two strangers, unable to afford to rent individually, split the cost of a room and share one bed.
The arrangement, dubbed “bedmates” on mainland social media, has been adopted by young workers and recent graduates who face high unemployment and financial insecurity in China’s struggling economy.
The popularity of the new phenomenon can be seen in the numerous posts seeking bedmates on the social media platform Xiaohongshu with hashtags like “sharing the same bed in a shared room”, reported news site Youth36kr.
In a report from June on new graduates in the rental market by 58.com and Anjuke, two of China’s real estate listing sites, more than 80 per cent of young people said they wanted to keep their rent below 30 per cent of their salary.
For a recent graduate with an average monthly salary of around 10,000 yuan (US$1,400), this means they are spending 3,000 yuan on rent, nowhere near the average cost of a comfortable unit that is convenient to commute to work.
The situation has not been helped by the country’s high youth unemployment rate, which hit a record 21.3 per cent in June, reported the National Bureau of Statistics in its most recent figures.