Henan Worker Families: Educational Investment Case Study

• In Event: Social Mobility and Education across the Globe

Abstract

Previous research on educational investment has predominantly been based on the rational actor assumption, positing that family decisions regarding educational expenditures are strategic choices made after rational deliberation of the returns on education. However, this theoretical approach evidently loses its validity in the face of the "irrational" educational investment phenomena observed in the worker families of Pingdingshan City, where there exists an inversion between the pressure to invest in education, which greatly exceeds the families' financial capacities, and the minimal returns from educational services. There is an urgent need for a new theoretical perspective to explain the widespread and disproportionately high family educational investments in this region. This paper attempts to construct a comprehensive social landscape that connects macroeconomic structures, local social formations, and societal ideologies, along with the micro mentalities of worker families under their mutual influence, through an analysis of specific field materials from a dynamic and process-oriented perspective. The study finds that the economic structure of Pingdingshan City, which is heavily reliant on the coal industry cluster, and the danwei system characteristic of this heavy industry, jointly determine the local social mentality's strong connection with industrial workers' perceptions of economic prospects and social transformation. The 21st century's downward efficiency in the coal industry, the corporatization reforms of the economic landscape, and the withdrawal of mining units from the public service sector have injected an unprecedented sense of crisis into local worker families, making the escape from this declining city a pervasive social mentality. Concurrently, the inflation of academic credentials within Pingdingshan's educational system has not only intensified educational competition but has also shaped education as the sole means of "escape." This is complemented by the emergence of a market-driven extracurricular education industry that caters to and even amplifies the "escape anxiety," expanding rapidly. Situated within such a social context, worker parents are confronted with intense escape anxiety and, limited by their own cultural levels, find themselves without viable solutions. The dual pressures simultaneously evoke feelings of guilt towards their children and reinforce a fervent pursuit of academic credentials among worker parents. These multifaceted mentalities intertwine and couple with the local educational structure, ultimately leading to a form of educational investment that is "irrational" and costly, and a voluntary relinquishment of educational authority.

Authors

• Wang Ke, Peking University

• Yu GAO

• Rebecca Apus, Peking University