Chinese women aged 30 and older are increasingly going to study in the United States and Europe, and after the lifting of coronavirus restrictions, this process has only accelerated. Why does this happen?
Some would like to improve their position in the labor market or in society, others would like to get out from under public pressure, and still others would like to get rid of the obsessive pressure of the community or relatives. About why Chinese women want to study abroad with the force of a real epidemic - in our today's material.
Back at the desk?
In European society, you will not surprise anyone with the desire to get a bachelor's or master's degree at the age of 30 or even 40, it is not uncommon for graduates to come to the graduation ceremony and hats to which grandchildren and great-grandchildren come. In China, the situation is completely different: here older graduates are more of a phenomenon, a rarity, an exception at best.
The social portrait of such students is quite typical: these are women over 30 years old who have never married. And there are hundreds, if not thousands, of such people, although obtaining higher education abroad is never an easy task, requiring a high initial academic level, English proficiency, and significant financial resources.
What drives Chinese women to study abroad?
Some, including the migrants themselves, call the coronavirus pandemic the catalyst for moving to Europe and the United States, but in fact, there are several reasons.
- Firstly, society has become more tolerant, and now the prospect of leaving to study abroad does not frighten traditional Chinese to the same extent as it was 10-20 years ago, discrimination in general is a thing of the past.
- Attitudes towards marriage have changed. If for decades the "one family, one child" policy in China was perceived as a tragedy, now the number of Chinese women who have not given birth in principle is growing every year: now among forty-year-olds there are almost 8% of them (against 2.6% ten years earlier), and among thirty-year-olds - 17% (against 6%).
- Internal competition in the labor market is growing. Even people with higher education who received it in the best Chinese universities are forced to work 60 hours a week, and this is far from the limit (despite the fact that another 3-4 hours a day often have to be spent on the road).
It is not surprising that rationally thinking young people, far from the chimeras of patriotism, "vote with their feet", preferring a less competitive environment to relatives and the prospect of building relationships in their native country. According to statistics, the number of search queries with the word "emigration" (in Chinese, of course) increased by 268% over the year, to 40 million queries in 2023 (subsequently, the Chinese search engine stopped publishing such statistics, considering it quite sensitive).
Relatives usually do not support such a choice, but the influence of the family is no longer decisive. In addition, some families understand the futility of education in China and help girls and boys save up to study in a foreign master's program (master's programs in many countries are much cheaper, and admission requirements are lower).
Winds of Freedom
The willingness of young Chinese to move abroad was also influenced by a change in policy, including demographic policy. Historically, both before and after the introduction of the one-child model in the late 1970s, the Chinese preferred sons to daughters because boys would take care of them in their old age. Often, women had abortions when they found out that they were going to have a daughter (the authorities responded with a ban on telling women in labor who they would have).
Such a policy led to paradoxical results. On the one hand, there were many illegal abortions, and doctors continued to tell the parents the gender of the child for bribes. On the other hand, millions of families appeared in the country where the only child was a daughter, and parents had to invest in what they had.
Another factor in "emancipation" was the rapid economic growth from the late 1990s to the late 10s, as a result of which a new generation of educated women was in demand in the labor market, even though their parents had not yet stopped working. A financial cushion was formed, which made it possible both to invest in improving the standard of living and to pay for the education of a daughter or son abroad in the hope of even greater success.
At the same time, this window of opportunity has already been closed for new women in childbirth: China has become a country where primary and preschool education is very expensive.
Searching for yourself in the new realities
Finally, there is a third point: why not look for a partner for a relationship in Europe, the United States or any other country - where the woman went to get her diploma of higher or second higher education? There is a higher level of prosperity, and women are more liberal and educated, and attitudes to interracial and intercultural relations are simpler. So why not take fate into your own hands, especially since there is one life, there will be no other?
