Mind the midlife career gap

At 39, Fang Hongxia found herself starting over, not by choice, but with reluctant acceptance.

For nearly 11 years, she had worked at a private company in Kunming, Yunnan province, starting in warehouse inventory and gradually taking on roles in client management, bidding documentation, e-commerce operations and internal coordination.

Her layoff came without warning before the National Day holiday in 2025.

"I thought it was just another routine conversation, but this time I was the topic. At first, I felt embarrassed, like I had lost face, but at the same time I also felt relieved. I had already been thinking about making a change, so it felt like something was pushing me forward," she said.

Months earlier, Fang had begun learning English and exploring new directions. After a short pause, she began looking for work, unsure of what she wanted.

"I was trying different things and figuring it out along the way. Instead of waiting for a full-time role, I took whatever work I could find, part-time shifts, hourly jobs, and even running a small street stall when necessary. I never really stopped working," she said.

Age, she found, could close doors before conversations even began. "At first, everything seemed normal until I mentioned my age. Then there would be no reply. In some cases, I was directly told that positions were limited to those under 30. Eventually, I learned to ask up front," she said.

Still, she did not see herself as "no longer needed".

"My child still depends on me, so I never had that feeling. Of course, there were moments when I felt overwhelmed, even briefly considering giving up, but it passed quickly. I told myself that if I couldn't find a job, I would create one," she said.

After seven months, Fang found a support role at a flower e-commerce company, earning just over 4,000 yuan ($593) a month. The role is more modest, but her mindset has shifted.

"I feel calmer now. I've seen many women carrying different kinds of pressure but still choosing to keep going," said Fang.

Juggling responsibilities

Fang's experience is not isolated.

More Chinese women in their late 30s and 40s are finding themselves navigating layoffs, stalled careers and competing family responsibilities.

Recruitment platform Zhaopin's 2025 China Women's Workplace Report shows that more than half of women are considering changing career paths, while only 7.9 percent express confidence in promotion, reflecting growing uncertainty around career stability and long-term development.

Many women face the dual pressures of work and family.

On the day she turned 40, Zhang Lele received a long-awaited job offer, ending a seven-month stretch of unemployment, repeated setbacks and a serious illness in her family.

For more than a decade, Zhang had worked at a small domestic consulting firm in Shanghai. The job was stable, with a manageable pace and a reasonable work-life balance. However, at age 39 she was unexpectedly laid off.

"My mind went blank, and my face felt hot. My first thought wasn't about finding a new job, but how I would explain this to my family," she said.

In the days that followed, she chose not to tell her family the entire truth, offering a more acceptable explanation while beginning her job search.

During the seven-month gap, Zhang split her time between job hunting and caring for her family, attending interviews while traveling between home and the hospital.

Zhang had around 30 interviews with 21 companies. In one month alone, she completed 11 interviews, with as many as six in a single week.

A recruiter later told her that such setbacks were increasingly common in a more demanding job market, helping her gradually reframe the experience. During the gap in her working life, she also stayed engaged by preparing for interviews and sharing her experiences online.

While she did not encounter direct discrimination based on age or gender, questions about her employment gap were common. She also received encouragement from interviewers and recruiters, some close to her age and confident in her experience. She chose to respond honestly, explaining how she had been preparing and managing family responsibilities.

For Zhang, the timing came as a relief. She had hoped to secure a job before her birthday, aware that a longer gap could limit her opportunities.

What sustained her, she said, was support from online communities and her 10-year-old daughter, who would draw pictures and write encouraging messages to cheer her up.

"I see myself as someone going through a career transition, not as a laid-off middle-aged person. It's important how you tell your own story. Finding a job is not difficult, but finding the right one is much harder. But I still believe there are opportunities for women like me," she said.

According to McKinsey & Company's 2023 Advancing Gender Equality in the Chinese Workplace report, 61 percent of women were asked about marital or childbearing plans during recruitment, compared with only about one-third of men.

These challenges are often further shaped by personal life choices.

Personal matters

Lin Yue, from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, built her career in advertising over more than a decade and now finds herself in an in-between phase, with personal plans intersecting with unclear career prospects.

In 2008, she started working for several companies and later became an advertising design director at a foreign enterprise.

That sense of stability began to unravel in 2024. After getting married, Lin found herself at a turning point when her company's business slowed and people were laid off. Facing both career uncertainty and personal decisions, she left her job in early 2025 to focus on having a child.

"I thought I could take a break and come back when things were clearer, but things didn't go the way I expected," said Lin.

Over the past year, things have not gone to plan. While trying to conceive, she has taken on freelance design work, but the income has been unstable.

"It's not that there's no work at all, but it's hard to maintain consistency. Most projects are short-term, and you don't know when the next one will come," she said.

At the same time, she has attempted to explore alternative paths. She enrolled in baking courses, with a possibility it could become a new career.

Yet, the reality proved more complicated than she expected. Building a business from scratch, she found, requires more than skills, as it takes time, capital and persistence.

"It's not as simple as learning a skill and turning it into a job. There's a long process behind it," said Lin.

She is also aware that the longer she stays away from a full-time role, the harder it may be to return, especially as she continues trying to start a family.

"There's always a concern in the back of my mind. If I step away for too long, will there still be a place for me to go back to?" she said.

For now, she is trying to maintain a connection to her profession while leaving space for personal plans, even if that means accepting less stability.

"I wouldn't say I'm lost, but I'm still in a phase where I need to keep myself from drifting too far away," said Lin.

According to Zhaopin's 2026 China Women's Workplace Report, 12.6 percent of women missed promotion opportunities due to gender discrimination, while 68.8 percent attributed workplace inequality to the burden of childbirth. Notably, more than half said they are unwilling to give up their careers for family.

Staying flexible

Behind these individual experiences lies a set of structural realities shaping the job market.

Fang Zhou, 35, from Xi'an, Shaanxi province, a former business leader at a major internet company, now works as a career coach, focusing on job seekers navigating transitions. Since 2023, she has worked with more than 200 clients, many of whom are in their 30s and 40s.

"Most of the people who come to me are over 30. Many of them start to lose confidence after just a few weeks without work by questioning themselves, even though their past performance and achievements are often solid," said Fang, who in her early 30s realized her corporate path was reaching its limits. She then began working with mid-career clients.

Fang said the reality for job seekers around 40 is difficult, but not without opportunities. Employers prioritize cost-effectiveness and role fit, often favoring younger candidates who are easier to manage and less expensive. For mid-career professionals, especially those in middle management, structural constraints also limit options.

"In many companies, there are fewer middle management positions. If you can't move up, you may have to return to front-line roles. The question is whether people are willing and able to do that, especially after being away from hands-on work for some time," she said.

For women, these challenges are further complicated by family responsibilities and assumptions related to marriage and childcare.

"It's not just about ability. You also have to prove that you can overcome these concerns and create value beyond them," said Fang.

Changes in hiring practices have made job searching more demanding, she has noticed. Resumes are often screened through keyword systems, and candidates must clearly communicate their achievements in interviews.

"Job searching has its own language. If you don't understand what employers are looking for, it's easy to be filtered out early," she said.

Employment gaps are not necessarily disqualifying, but candidates need to show their skills have remained relevant or improved.

"A career transition is not starting from zero. It's about transferring what you've already built into a new focus. The most practical path is usually to move into something related to your existing experience, where your skills can still be applied," said Fang.

While the process can be difficult, Fang believes it remains possible with the right mindset and preparation.

"It's normal to go through a low point at this stage of life. What matters is not giving up. You need to stay proactive and keep adapting. It's hard, but that's exactly the point. If it were easy, it wouldn't be your turn," said Fang.

While structural constraints remain, some individuals are also attempting to create new spaces beyond traditional employment paths.

The 2025 Flexible Staffing Platform Development Report released by the Chinese Academy of Labour and Social Security and Qingtuanshe, a Chinese flexible staffing platform, said women make up nearly 60 percent of flexible staffing participants, with those age 30 and above slightly above the platform average.

However, the problems middle-aged women face in the workplace are not unique to China. The Harvard Business Review recently surveyed 913 women leaders who work in higher education, faith-based nonprofits, law, and healthcare with open-ended questions designed to uncover the different types of bias they may have experienced in their careers, according to a report by HuffPost.

"There was always an age-based excuse to not take women seriously, to discount their opinions, or to not hire or promote them," researchers wrote.

Creating value

As the founder of a women-focused community, Xu Mei has taken a different path. The 39-year-old former human resources manager now focuses on supporting midlife women navigating similar life and career transitions. Based in Dalian, Liaoning province, she builds both online and offline networks that provide practical support and shared experience during this stage of change.

After stepping away from work for four years to raise her child, she struggled to return to the workforce. Roles that once seemed manageable, long hours, frequent travel and high intensity were no longer compatible with family responsibilities. Within a year, she had changed jobs five times and was later laid off again amid company restructuring.

"I had a mortgage, a child and parents to support. At that moment, I realized I had to start over. I let go of all my labels. There is nothing shameful about starting small," said Xu.

She began sharing her experience online, which resonated with other women. She was then introduced to supply chains and started building small community-based sales groups, gradually forming a stable business model, with two groups reaching around 800 members and annual sales exceeding 1.5 million yuan.

At the same time, she launched offline salons, which evolved into a structured women's community, hosting over 115 sessions and attracting more than 3,000 participants, mostly women age between 35 and 45. The activities ranged from emotional support and social connection to self-media training and income exploration, forming a hybrid space of mutual support and practical learning.

"These women are not lacking ability. They are often trapped by what they already have, including their past roles, responsibilities and expectations," said Xu.

Through her work, Xu has observed that many midlife women face overlapping pressures from family, employment and identity. Highly replaceable roles such as human resources, administration and customer service often leave them vulnerable as they age, while childcare and household responsibilities further limit their options.

"Many people feel stuck between not wanting to give up stability and not knowing how to move forward. They understand many things in theory, but don't know how to apply them in real life," she said.

Rather than offering a single solution, Xu sees her role as building a platform where women can reconnect with themselves and with each other. She encourages them to take up work that relies more on personal skills and less on organizational dependency, while she also emphasizes the value of community support.

"Midlife is a crisis, but also a new opportunity. Having shed the recklessness of youth, I now have the confidence to start again," said Xu.