Parents with higher education levels spend more on children’s private education: study

Daechi-dong in Gangnam-gu, Seoul (Yonhap)

Parents with higher levels of education spend more on their children’s private education, data showed on Friday.

Parents holding master’s degrees spent an average of 600,000 won ($450) to 640,000 won per child per month on private education last year, according to Statistics Korea. This is 3.8 times more than the monthly average of 170,000 won to 200,000 won spent per child by parents with educational backgrounds below middle school.

Mothers with a high school degree spent an average of 318,000 won per month while mothers with an undergraduate degree spent an average of 479,000 won.

Regarding the distribution of educational backgrounds, mothers with college degrees represented the largest group at 60 percent, followed by those with high school degrees at 27.8 percent, master’s degrees at 7.6 percent and education below middle school at 1.7 percent.

The trend was similar for fathers.

A father with a master’s degree spent an average of 615,000 won per month per child, while those with college degrees spent 475,000 won, those with high school degrees spent 318,000 won and those with an educational level below middle school spent 202,000 won.

Regarding their educational backgrounds, fathers with college degrees made up the largest group at 55.8 percent, followed by those with high school-level education at 26.7 percent, those with master’s degrees at 11.1 percent and those with educational levels below than middle school at 1.8 percent.

By Shin Ji-hye(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)