I’m going to guess your financial situation is a tad better off than the median given what you’ve described about it already. You’re also twisting what I said, which isn’t that people don’t care about their children being well-educated, rather that not being able to afford tutoring won’t prevent people from having kids.
Meanwhile, you’re making lots of assumptions there yourself. I grew up in USSR, people very much valued having education for their kids there. Those who could afford it got additional tutoring, but that was also a small percentage of the population.
My situation puts me firmly in the middle class in Wuhan. This puts me way ahead of the countryside, of course, but that’s true of most anybody fortunate enough to have a Wuhan hukou.
And you are (with me increasingly thinking it is wilful) misunderstanding what I am trying to get across. So this will be my last attempt before I write you off as a wilfully ignorant ideologue, no different than an American conservative except your lunacy has you falling to the left, not the right.
People here educate their children. Period. They go through (to western eyes) insane lengths to do so, like village uplifts that were so common in the '90s and early '00s. As a result raising a child here is painfully expensive. If you go into practically any household that’s not in the 1%, you will find that education is the single largest expense, higher even than housing, for most people. (Yes the 10% have access to more and better, yes, so do the 25% and 50%. But almost everybody in China spends whatever they can on educating their children.) Because of this people do not perceive themselves able to afford a second (not to mention third!) child.
My colleagues. My wife’s colleagues. My neighbours. My wife’s extended family (but for one wealthy couple). They all express a desire to have a second child. None of them are having second children. Because it is too fucking expensive. And in that spread of people we have people who are in such dire poverty they need to save water drips that don’t register on the metre to wash clothes and bodies, as well as the solidly middle class and a couple up in the upper middle class (who used to be 1% but … had a bit of a fall).
Until that is directly and thoroughly addressed in some way by policy, no amount of peripheral incentives like the ones mentioned above are going to do anything. They’re pretty much pissing into the ocean. The problem is that the people forming these policies are badly disconnected from regular people. They’re straight-up in the 1% and don’t understand just how much of a looming elephant education is.
You can disagree. I will cheerfully ignore you, then, as the literally ignorant person you are. When boots on the ground are telling you what is, your well-read, bookish theory of what should be is not a good counter.
Again, assumptions.
I’m not upper class. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
And the assumption that it’s only the upper class that wants their children well-educated betrays very western assumptions about how people think.
I’m going to guess your financial situation is a tad better off than the median given what you’ve described about it already. You’re also twisting what I said, which isn’t that people don’t care about their children being well-educated, rather that not being able to afford tutoring won’t prevent people from having kids.
Meanwhile, you’re making lots of assumptions there yourself. I grew up in USSR, people very much valued having education for their kids there. Those who could afford it got additional tutoring, but that was also a small percentage of the population.
My situation puts me firmly in the middle class in Wuhan. This puts me way ahead of the countryside, of course, but that’s true of most anybody fortunate enough to have a Wuhan hukou.
And you are (with me increasingly thinking it is wilful) misunderstanding what I am trying to get across. So this will be my last attempt before I write you off as a wilfully ignorant ideologue, no different than an American conservative except your lunacy has you falling to the left, not the right.
People here educate their children. Period. They go through (to western eyes) insane lengths to do so, like village uplifts that were so common in the '90s and early '00s. As a result raising a child here is painfully expensive. If you go into practically any household that’s not in the 1%, you will find that education is the single largest expense, higher even than housing, for most people. (Yes the 10% have access to more and better, yes, so do the 25% and 50%. But almost everybody in China spends whatever they can on educating their children.) Because of this people do not perceive themselves able to afford a second (not to mention third!) child.
My colleagues. My wife’s colleagues. My neighbours. My wife’s extended family (but for one wealthy couple). They all express a desire to have a second child. None of them are having second children. Because it is too fucking expensive. And in that spread of people we have people who are in such dire poverty they need to save water drips that don’t register on the metre to wash clothes and bodies, as well as the solidly middle class and a couple up in the upper middle class (who used to be 1% but … had a bit of a fall).
Until that is directly and thoroughly addressed in some way by policy, no amount of peripheral incentives like the ones mentioned above are going to do anything. They’re pretty much pissing into the ocean. The problem is that the people forming these policies are badly disconnected from regular people. They’re straight-up in the 1% and don’t understand just how much of a looming elephant education is.
You can disagree. I will cheerfully ignore you, then, as the literally ignorant person you are. When boots on the ground are telling you what is, your well-read, bookish theory of what should be is not a good counter.
You’re clearly very upset, so there’s really no point continuing this. We’ll see what actually happens soon enough.