One evening this October, I had a video chat with my mother who was in working in China. With concern, she told me that her real estate company's business was declining because of the Chinese government's policy control over the real estate industry. According to her observation, other real estate companies were also facing the same situation. If she lost her job at her current age of 45, she would have a hard time finding a similar management position. I could see my mother was depressed and anxious, but I didn't know how to comfort her. When I thought about how precarious her position was, I was reminded that my father lost his job as the company's manager when he was 40 years old and was forced to start his own business. However, the business was not successful.

Worries about employment have begun to surface early. My cousin is studying computer science in college with the intention of pursuing a master's degree. Already, he is full of anxiety, worried about what is known in Chinese IT companies as the “35-year-old ceiling.”1 Many programmers over 35 years old are forced out of their companies or discriminated against in the job market, making it difficult to find the same high-paying jobs they had before they were 35. If he graduates with a master's degree at the age of 26 and secures a full-time job, he will have less than a decade in his “golden age.” Why is that? Why are 35-45 year olds discriminated against in the job market in China? Will I face the same crisis in the future? If so, what is the value of decades-long education?

After collecting data online and reading news reports, I discovered that the "35-year-old ceiling" exists in many industries in China, especially in the Internet industry. According to statistics from a Chinese recruitment website, among China's 20 leading internet companies, the average employee age ranges from 27 to 33, with most companies having an average age below 30.2 According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, between the ages of 20 and 34, the average weekly working hours can reach about 45 hours. After the age of 35, the average weekly working hours will start to decrease due to family and physical ability, which is an important reason why many companies set 35 years old as the threshold for recruitment.3 These companies believe that employees over 35 years old face greater pressure to take care of their families, devote less time to work than younger employees, and are less able to accept new knowledge and generate new ideas. Additionally, older employees have higher requirements on salary, so companies are reluctant to hire more employees over 35 years old.

This "35-year-old ceiling" phenomenon exists not only in the Internet industry, but also in China's real estate industry. My mother told me that, due to the rapid development of China's real estate industry in the past two decades, most companies require their employees to work long hours every week, even on some weekends and holidays. Therefore, young people who can withstand high-intensity work are naturally more competitive in the recruitment market. Unlike the United States, China does not have a law banning age discrimination.4 As such, it is not illegal for employers to specify age limits when posting job advertisements in China, which further leads to age discrimination in the job market.

The United States passed The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) in 1967. This law protects certain applicants and employees 40 years of age and older from discrimination on the basis of age in hiring, promotion, discharge, compensation, or terms, conditions or privileges of employment. 5 Has age discrimination really disappeared in the American job market? Not really. Many companies use a variety of methods to screen candidates in their target age range, such as specifying in job postings that the organization seeks "digital natives" , recruiting for certain positions only on college campuses, requiring a college-affiliated e-mail address to apply to a job opening, using algorithms for online job applications that screen out older applicants, capping the number of years of work experience sought in applicants.6 For example, some companies stipulate that job candidates should have no more than 10 years of experience, which deprives applicants over 35 of opportunities. Some companies use low performance evaluations to force employees over 40 to leave the company or accept lower pay.7 Laws alone cannot put an end to this kind of unfair phenomenon.

As a teenager, why should I care? Isn't this problem far away from me? When a college graduate achieves his or her bachelor's degree, he or she has received at least sixteen years of education, while a master's degree means nearly 20 years of education. Should they have only a decade or so to achieve their prime and then face age discrimination? If so, what prospects remain? Will older employees have to take lower-paying jobs or be forced to start businesses or become freelancers? Even if they start a business, if this phenomenon is still prevalent, won't the companies they found become what they hated at the beginning?

Is there a society in China or the United States where middle-aged people are discriminated against because there are too many young people and so many young people entering the workforce? Not statistically. China's fertility rate hit a record low in 2020, and the country's population grew at its slowest rate in the recent 50 years at 0.3%.  Against this background, the Chinese government first announced the three-child policy in May 2021.8 The goal of this new policy is to stimulate China's fertility rate and prevent the country's population growth from falling further. The fertility rate in the United States is also on the decline. According to current data, it is predicted that, by 2034, the number of people aged 65 in the United States will be larger than the number of people under 18. At that point, the US will have entered the "aging society".9

In order to cope with the crisis of an aging society and to avoid placing excessive pressure on a young labor force to support a retired population, China will raise the statutory age for retirement in a gradual, flexible, and differentiated manner,10 which means that middle-aged people in their 40s may not reach the legal retirement age until they are 65. Wouldn't it be ironic if they were forced out of work in their mid-40s and didn't receive their statutory pension until they were 65? If this were to happen, eventual retirees will have been discriminated against in the job market, while legally required to continue working.

Although there is no mandatory retirement age or government pension for most jobs in the United States,11 a growing elderly population coupled with job discrimination still places a heavy burden on government unemployment benefits. This ultimately drags down the economic development of the whole society.

With the development of artificial intelligence, many simple jobs that rely on repetitive movements are likely to be replaced. At the same time, people are living longer and longer. For example, life expectancy has lengthened from an average of 59.19 years old in 1971 to the average of 77.13 years old in 2021 in China and an average of 71 years old in 1971 to 78.99 years old in 2021 in the United States respectively. 12 The tension between ageism and an aging society is emerging, and artificial intelligence and the increase in life expectancy have exacerbated the conflict.

Faced with such a situation, what can we do? Should life follow the following pattern: work hard, go to college, graduate in your twenties, work for ten years, then struggle to find employment for the rest of your life? 

In my opinion, every age of life has its splendor, and every life experience should be unique and valuable. What is more, someone’s life in 20-35 years old should not only be focused. At that age, people should cherish other wonderful experiences in life. As responsible citizens of society, we have an obligation to make the world a better place so that people of different ages can create their value fairly and allow society to develop. For example, we can suggest that the government should apply different corporate income tax rates or give corresponding tax incentives to enterprises employing different proportions of middle-aged employees over the age of 40. This would encourage enterprises to hire more middle-aged employees. From the research field of artificial intelligence, we also expect to see more scientific research achievements that transform emotional experience, emotional value, and other "perceptual data" accumulated in life experiences into tools that can create value for society and generate more jobs. We do not want to see the development of artificial intelligence eventually become the enemy of the elderly. Instead, it should become a common friend of society. I am currently interested in sports management and health management, and I do not want this field to become only a paradise for young people. It should not exist to help middle-aged and elderly people improve their health and prolong their lives. If older people have healthy bodies but can not create more value for society, the field of health management loses its significance. I hope I can not only help them enjoy the fun brought by health and sports, but also help them create greater social value together.

The world belongs to everyone of different ages. The middle-aged's yesterday is the young's today, but each of us deserves a better tomorrow.

1,tellerreport.com/life/2020-08-29-lost-your-job-at-the-age-of-35--how-%22code-farmers%22-broke-the-%2235-year-old-ceiling%22.r1-64QDQw.html

2, inf.news/en/tech/5b299e2185f48fb2121545d5d38fa624.html

3, inf.news/en/tech/5b299e2185f48fb2121545d5d38fa624.html

4,piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/chinas-population-ages-age-discrimination-chinas-workplace-needs-end

5,eeoc.gov/statutes/age-discrimination-employment-act-1967

6,shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/age-discrimination-in-the-workplace-.aspx

7,aarp.org/work/working-at-50-plus/info-2019/age-discrimination-in-america.html

8,eastasiaforum.org/2021/07/08/the-reality-of-chinas-fertility-decline/

9,census.gov/library/stories/2018/03/graying-america.html

10, xinhuanet.com/english/2021-03/12/c_139806275.htm

11, econ.ucla.edu/tvwachter/papers/vonwa_mr_2009.pdf

12,macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life-expectancy