Why did "Middle-Aged Women Who Disappeared from the Workforce" become a trendy topic?

Recently, an article titled "Middle-Aged Women Who Disappeared from the Workforce" triggered heated public discussions on social media. The protagonist of the article is a 48-year-old senior merchandising manager in the fashion industry. After the bankruptcy of her company due to the pandemic, she was no longer able to find a stable job. From the reader feedbacks to the article and other related news reports, similar situations have occurred to many mothers in the later childcare period. After their children have grown up and they want to return to the workforce, they realized that they are unwelcome either because of age, or their requirement for flexible working hours.

Reaching the middle age means letting go of the self who was once clueless and immature. The majority of middle-aged people have built their own families, accumulated career experiences. They have both the old and the young to support at home with no one to depend on, but have to be responsible for taking care of the entire family. In traditional agrarian society, middle age equates to experience, accumulation, and resource advantages. However, in a consumer society which favors youth, change, and efficiency, reaching middle age means bigger responsibilities and burdens, along with the risks of falling behind and being replaced.

When facing similar workplace stress and middle-age crises, men and women have different role expectations and social pressures. While middle-aged "uncles" might also need to accept their banal and repetitive work and family responsibilities, most can maintain their work positions and income. On the other hand, middle-aged women are conducting labor both "visibly" (in the public domain) and "invisibly" (in the private domain), weaving together the daily lives of numerous families. Yet they are also facing the double marginalization in both the job market and society as a whole. Not only are they susceptible to belittling and rejection in the workplace, social culture is also unfriendly to "middle-aged women" and "aunties".

In history and in present reality, women and marginalized groups who are old and have heavy family burdens are most impacted by labor market adjustments. Under this background, even middle-aged women with sound professional expertise and the intention to reenter the workforce are prone to be labelled with discriminatory age and gender tags, and be excluded from the regular labor market.

In fact, most women above 40 have been liberated from the heavy childcare labor. Aside from their work experience and resource accumulation, women of this age have built up essential skills from managing their families, where they can recognize people's emotions and needs. and have exceptional advantages in interpersonal communication, maintaining relations, and work reliability.

It is unfortunate then that China's current labor market is not ready to accommodate middle-aged women. Due to the continuous spread of the global pandemic, the labor market has taken a heavy blow. Showing due concern to middle-aged women's employment and social roles is not only a must from the perspective of justice and fairness, but also provides an angle for reflecting upon the problems of our socio-economic developmental model. When we are used to an overall increase in our economy, are we ready to make structural shifts?

Besides the market culture that advocates for fierce competition and winner-takes-all, are we ready to diversify the forms of economic development and establish social safety protection mechanisms? When the wave of consumerism continuously feeds obsession with the faster, newer, and younger, are we ready to embrace a population who will generally live longer, and a working population with more middle-to-senior-aged workers? When internet platform economy and "996” overtime work culture ostensibly sweep all aspects of society, are we ready to come back to real life and adopt more flexible working hours? Caring for middle-aged women who are disappearing in the workforce might help us from another dimension to reestablish a safer and more resilient social life.

Contributed by Li Jie, associate professor, China Women's University

Translated by Zhang Junye