Understanding and Utilizing China's Only Children

You may not think it by looking at my picture, but in some ways I am typically Chinese! Having begun this piece with such an outrageous statement, I suppose I should qualify it a little. Obviously, it has nothing to do with my ethnicity. Instead, I am referring to the fact that I am an only child. I was also born in the first few days of 1980, just as the impact of China's ‘one child' policy began to take effect. Twenty-eight years later, the Chinese of my generation present a new set of challenges in the workplace.

The one-child policy ushered in a pronounced shift in Chinese parenting. No longer were parental care, attention, and finances diluted amongst three or four siblings as they had for millennia. A generation of Chinese youngsters grew up being the centre of attention, getting their way, and wanting for little.The privileged and perhaps spoiled environment in which they matured earned them the unflattering moniker ‘little emperors'. Of course, this is a rather simplistic view of the whole situation, yet it is not inaccurate to suggest that the children of the 1980s have very different ideas and attitudes than those held by previous generations of Chinese.

Imperial Laziness

Many older Chinese label the ‘little emperors' as selfish and lacking in work ethic. A recent article in China Daily discussed these new attitudes in some of China's most high-profile young sports stars, citing them as extreme examples of the ‘little emperor' syndrome. The author, Zhao Rui, argued that stars born in the 1980s have abandoned the team ethics traditionally valued in Chinese sport, focusing solely on personal gain and glory.

"If ‘little emperors' struggle to find emotional compatibility, what about their employable compatibility?"

At face value, the supposedly adolescent behaviour of some of China's youngest sports stars might not be of any interest to HR staff. However, tennis star Li Na's supposed selfish streak or table-tennis player Chen Qi's temper tantrums may be more important than you might think. If the ‘little emperor' phenomenon can have such a major impact on the sporting world, what wider resonance could it have? More specifically, what impact could it have on your organisation?

Already, we can see that the ‘little emperors' have very different social attitudes compared to their parents. For instance, the divorce rate amongst children born in the 1980s is growing faster than in any other group. According to a survey conducted by the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, the divorce rate between two only-children is an alarming 24.5%. It argues that many only-children are simply not used to making concessions, as a result their marriages flounder amidst incessant conflict.

Those statistics on divorce made me think. If ‘little emperors' struggle to find emotional compatibility, what about their professional compatibility? If recent statistics are any kind of guide, the children of the 1980s are making waves. When the first little emperors walked out of university and into the workplace in 2001, employee turnover in China was at 8.3%, according to Hewitt Associates. Two years later, that number rose to 11.3%. By 2006, 14% of employees in China were leaving their post every year. Many organizations argue that the same inability to compromise that sent the ‘Me Generation's' divorce rate spiraling has affected their employee loyalty as well. They claim the ‘little emperors' privileged positions make them difficult employees to deal with, and that their selfish streaks impel them to always be on the lookout for higher salaries and better positions. There have even been reports from Henan province of organizations actively discriminating against candidates without siblings, on the grounds that they believe them to be unreliable and likely to jump ship.

Young Attitudes in Old Eyes

Estimates from such sources as China's National Population and Family Planning Commission, suggest that the one-child policy has thus far delivered over 100 million only-children. As I did my research on this article, I found that the prevailing opinion of this new generation is overwhelmingly negative. It seems as though older generations are queuing up to criticise their younger counterparts. In the pages of China Daily, a manager from Shanghai described the one-child generation as follows, "This generation is weaker in practical skills, has less sense of responsibility, and is lazier [than previousgenerations]." His comments were typical of those in his position. I lost countof the amount of times I saw words such as: "spoiled", "lazy" or "selfish" whendescribing the ‘little emperors'.

One set of comments, however, really made me think. The article about only-child sports stars featured a whole host of comments bemoaning the way many of the new generation take a far more self-centred approach to their disciplines, rather than remaining focused on their team. However, many of the coaches interviewed for the article overlooked that China is now, partly because of this attitude, enjoying much more success on the sports field. Let me use a couple of obvious examples, Liu Xiang and Yi Jinalian - two of the most famous little-emperors.