by Ans Hooft<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t The sky came falling down. That\u2019s how the Chinese say it when disaster strikes, and that\u2019s exactly how it felt for me. My ayi just told me she\u2019s returning to her hometown to care for her newborn grandchild. After twelve years of loyal service, I was not prepared for this.<\/p> In China, both local city dwellers and expats rely on an ayi<\/em>, who makes life so much easier.\u00a0Ayi<\/em>\u00a0literally means \u2018auntie,\u2019 but in practice she is so much more. She can be a cleaner, housekeeper, babysitter, cook, kitchen manager, living in full-time or dividing her hours part-time across several households. According to a Jingkids survey in 2025, 80% of ayis work without a labor contract. Around 65% work part-time, often juggling multiple households. Of the full-timers, 25% live in, and they usually work far more than 40 hours a week. The pay isn\u2019t bad: for part-timers it ranges from 40\u201360 RMB per hour. On a full schedule, that\u2019s more than a skilled mechanic earns. They usually also receive a red envelope for Chinese New Year (like a 13th month\u2019s salary), and expat employers always pay them during holidays. Chinese families can be a little stingier. I remember a discussion with a group of Chinese women who refused to pay their ayis during the months-long lockdown. \u201cShe\u2019s not working, is she?\u201d was the reasoning.<\/p> My ayi managed to keep six different households in perfect order. She was always cheerful, efficient, and clever. For twelve years she did everything I didn\u2019t feel like doing, without taking a single sick day. Leak in the apartment? She\u2019d call the repairman. Vacuum cleaner broken? She\u2019d fix it. Me bedridden with illness? She\u2019d cook soup. She\u2019d scold me for being too thin, and nag me that my Chinese still wasn\u2019t good enough. She knew exactly whose socks were whose and where they belonged. She knew that in this house lives a perfectionist who wants his shirts arranged by color on identical hangers.<\/p> It is completely in line with Chinese traditions and expectations that she will now take care of her grandchild. The Chinese retire relatively early. Until recently, women retired at 50 or 55, depending on their sector. (As of this year, however, the retirement age will gradually increase to 58 for women and 63 for men.) This allows grandparents to take on childcare so that both parents can continue working full-time. According to the Shanghai Municipal Population and Family Planning Commission, as many as 90% of young children in Shanghai were cared for by a grandparent in 2013. When school lets out here, you only see grandmas and grandpas waiting outside.<\/p> My ayi has even arranged her own successor and comes to introduce her. The resemblance is uncanny; laughing out loud, they tell me they grew up in the same village in Anhui. I needn\u2019t worry, everything is under control, they assure me. When the moment of farewell comes, we both cry rivers of tears. It will take some getting used to, with the look-alike replacement. But not just yet.<\/p>
They come from rural China to work in the cities, and like other migrant workers they leave their own children behind with grandparents. If they earn enough and don\u2019t live too far away, they might be able to visit their families two or three times a year. They send money home in the hope of giving their children a better future.<\/p>