Parental Investment on a Socioeconomic Basis: A Comparative Study of Southeast China and Taiwan

Abstract

Differences in socioeconomic status have long been one of the major contributing factors to household educational investment, which is also a key concern in related research. Utilizing Panel Study of Family Dynamics (PSFD) datasets from 2003 to 2004, in this study we examine family investment in children’s education in southeast China and Taiwan, two core economic players in east Asia, with mainland China presenting much more social inequality than Taiwan, based on Gini coefficient measures. Our findings reveal that the different levels of parental investment in education are consistent with socioeconomic disparities, which vary significantly both quantitatively and qualitatively among mainland Chinese families from diverse social class backgrounds, but this gap appears to be narrowing among households in Taiwan. Parents’ level of education and income, deemed as the main class-based indicators, continue to be the determining factors in how families obtain and construct educational access, resources and opportunities for their offspring.

Keywords:

• Educational inequality
• mainland China
• parental investment
• socioeconomic status
• Taiwan

Notes

Acknowledgment

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Please see http://psfd.sinica.edu.tw

2 All the spending and income in Taiwan sample are converted to China Yuan (CNY) based on 2004 currency exchange rate.

3 The deviance and Pearson goodness-of-fit tests are insignificant, thus instead of using negative binomial model, we performed Poisson regression.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan [MOST 111-2410-H-004-113-MY2].

Notes on contributors

Xi Chen

Xi Chen is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at National Chengchi University.

Li-Chung Hu

Li-Chung Hu is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at National Chengchi University.