Children's education: New luxury symbol of parents 奢侈身份最新象征：子女教育
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Children in gowns and mortarboards run with smiles during their kindergarten graduation ceremony in a kindergarten
What’s the latest luxury status symbol in China? It’s not a handbag by Louis Vuitton or Gucci. According to Chinese parents, it’s their children. Shelling out a small fortune for their children’s schooling, summer vacations, and extracurriculars is the latest trend for Chinese parents looking to distinguish themselves.
This summer, an article titled, “A Monthly Salary of 30,000 RMB is Not Enough for My Child’s Summer Vacation” went viral on WeChat Moments. Written by a high-paid executive mom, it tells the story of how she can hardly keep up with the extravagant overseas summer programmes that she lines up for her daughter.
The mother says the total cost of her daughter’s education for the summer is 35,000 yuan, including 20,000 yuan for a 10-day US study tour and other tutoring classes that cost up to 10,000 yuan.
A hospital staff member teaches primary school children how to do eye exercises, at a primary school in Handan, Hebei province
Immediately after the post was published, Chinese netizens responded furiously, with many Weibo users asking, ‘Can an expensive summer vacation really make your kids ‘better’ than others?”
Other internet users wondered about the intentions of parents making such a sacrifice. “Is this to fulfil the parents’ vanity or to make the children happy?”
Parents like Linda Xu strongly oppose such criticism. Xu, who works as an operations manager in an international automobile company in Beijing, told Jing Daily that she spent less than that of the mom in the post, though the cost of different tutoring classes that she selected for her eight-year-old son to take during the summer “definitely exceeded 20,000 RMB.”
She rationalised her decision by saying, “This is the luxury I didn’t get to enjoy when I was young, and I hope to start early on my kid’s elite education so that he can stand out among his peers as he grows older.”
A unique phenomenon that reflects the anxiety of China’s middle class
According to a June report by HSBC on global education expenses, 93 per cent of Chinese parents have been paying for kids’ private schools, a figure surpassing that of the United States (46 per cent), France (32 per cent), and the United Kingdom, respectively, by at least 40 per cent.
The strong emphasis placed by Chinese parents on education has fuelled the growth of the children’s education market in China lately. What’s more, there has been a myth among Chinese mothers that the quality of education is positively correlated with the price they pay. However, the loosely regulated education market means that the correlation is not always true.
“This irrational phenomenon is unique to the middle class in China,” writes Yu Xiulan, the professor of education at Nanjing University, in a blog post in September 2016.
He reasons that the country’s elite class doesn’t have to worry about changing the social status through education, whereas for lower-class households, they simply cannot afford it. China’s middle class comes in between, whose anxiety about keeping their current social status urges them to spend a great deal of money in education, even at the expense of their quality of life, in order to make them feel secure.
“They compare it (how much they spend on a child’s summer vacation) to luxury clothes or cars,” said Xiao Bingqi, the deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute in an interview, drawing the connection between this irrational behaviour with that of luxury spending.
How can luxury brands learn from this changing mentality?
It, thus, has become crucial for luxury brands to understand the changing psychology of the Chinese middle class, who is also the fast-rising consumer segment for luxury shopping in China.
“The old notion of luxury goods displaying social status is so outdated,” said Paul Swinand, the senior vice president of Four Hills Advisor.
He advised luxury brands to adjust their strategy to reach to different levels of consumers under this big umbrella term of “Chinese middle class”.
Besides, the education fever by China’s middle class speaks about one of their renowned characteristics, pragmatism, which has a deep influence on their luxury shopping habits as well.
As Xu puts it, “I’d rather spend money on children’s education than luxury goods, because it has a much higher rate of return on investment than my Gucci bags.”
Xu’s thinking seems like bad news for luxury brands, but with the right marketing and branding message that resonates with her true need of feeling secure about the current social status, the situation is highly likely to be turned.
中国家长奢侈身份最新象征：攀比子女教育
在中国，奢侈身份的最新象征是什么？答案并不是一个LV或Gucci牌子的包包。中国家长们给出的答案是：他们的子女。掏一笔钱让孩子上学、参加夏令营以及课外辅导班，是中国父母区分自身地位的最新趋势。
今年夏天，一篇名为《月薪三万，还是撑不起孩子的一个暑假》的文章在微信朋友圈走红。这篇文章由一位月薪高达3万元人民币的母亲所写，讲述了自己几乎很难承担为女儿所挑选的海外奢侈夏令营项目的学费。
在北京工作的徐女士表示，她在这方面的开支没有文章中的母亲多，不过她为8岁儿子挑选的暑期辅导班花销“也绝对超过了2万元”。
在一家跨国移动公司担任运营经理的徐女士认为自己的决定是合理的，她说：“这种奢侈是我小时候没能享受到的，我希望对孩子的精英教育能够开始得早一些，这样当他长大后就能比同龄人要出色。”
今年6月，由汇丰银行出具的一项关于国际教育开支的报告显示，93%的中国家长将钱花在了子女上私立学校的学费上，这个数字超过了美国(46%)、法国(32%)和英国(至少40%)。
中国父母对教育的重视近来大大促进了中国的儿童教育市场。并且，在中国母亲中流传着这样一个神话，即教育质量与她们所支付的学费是成正比的。不过，管制不够严格的教育市场也意味着这种关联并不总是正确的。
南京大学教育专家余秀兰(音译)曾在博客上写到，“这种不理智的做法是发生在中国中产阶层身上的独有现象”。
余秀兰认为，中国的精英阶层不需要担心通过教育改变社会身份，而对于处在较低阶层的家庭来说，他们根本就负担不起。中国的中产阶层处于二者中间，维持自己现有社会地位的焦虑促使他们将大笔的钱花在了教育上，牺牲自己的生活质量也在所不惜，只要能够让自己感到安全。
非营利组织21世纪教育研究院副院长熊丙奇曾将中产阶级的这种不理智做法和购买奢侈品作了比较。“他们将它(能花多少钱在孩子的夏令营上)与奢侈品衣服和汽车相提并论”，他说。
正如徐女士所说：“相比奢侈品，我更愿意把钱花在孩子的教育上，因为从投资的角度来说，这比我的Gucci包包回报率更高。”
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