Why do students enrol for postgraduate education in China? The influence of gender and of family habitus

ABSTRACT

The article draws upon Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and cultural capital to provide an in-depth analysis of the gender differences in students’ motivation for undertaking postgraduate (PG) education in Mainland China. It reports an in-depth case study comprising 381 questionnaires and 30 semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data show that students who enter PG education do so chiefly to improve employment prospects. The qualitative data, while supporting the quantitative results, show students’ motives were also gender-differentiated and how they interact with students’ family habitus.

KEYWORDS:

• Habitus
• gender
• enrolment factors
• postgraduate education
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Dan Liu is a lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Law, Coventry University, UK. She obtained her PhD in Education from the University of Nottingham, UK. Her current research focuses on the internationalisation of higher education, particularly as experienced by students and staff in transnational learning and teaching.

Emeritus Professor W. John Morgan is Senior Fellow, China Policy Institute, University of Nottingham; Honorary Professor, School of Social Sciences, and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow, Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research and Data, Cardiff University.

Notes

1 They are issued by the Ministry of Education to improve the overall infrastructure of institutions and build up world-class universities.

2 This generally corresponds to the gender distribution of the students at G University where most of the students are female, with a male–female (PG students) ratio of around 20–80. It is well-known for language studies, including English and other languages, linguistics, and literature.

3 This is the result of the gender imbalance of the students at G University as indicated in Note 2.

4 23.9% × 88 (the total number of male respondents) + 15.0% × 293 (the total number of female respondents) = 65.

5 The Sixth Nationwide Population Census of 2010 shows that the average age of marriage for women is 23.89, while that of men is 25.86. This is up slightly from 23.17 and 25.11, respectively, in 2000 (NBSC 2010).

6 See for instance Li, Zhao, and Morgan (2016) for an example of PG job search and internal migration in China.

7 It is regulated that the tuition fees for master’s degrees in academic disciplines are capped at 8000 Yuan.