Skip to main content

Career of children more important than their happiness in life for India's middle class parents: HSBC survey

Counterview Desk
A global survey by top international bankers, HSBC, has suggested that most Indian parents professional success more important than a happy life for their children. Titled The Value of Education: Learning for Life, the study, which is based on a survey of 5,500 parents across 16 countries in the world, says that 49 per cent of them said a happy life for their children was important, worst in the world.
Interestingly, the study also finds that, by sharp contrast, to 51 per cent Indian parents career success is more important for their children than all other countries, with the sole exception of Mexico. According to the study, this in sharp contrast to how parents in the developed countries like the US, UK, Canada and Australia think.
To achieve the sought-after careers, Indian parents want their children to continue their education in university and to graduate level more aggressively compared to any other country of the world. Almost 90 per cent of them, the largest proportion globally, said that a master’s degree or higher would help their child achieve their life goals as adults.
Not only are the parents willing to pay more for higher studies of their children, the survey has found, they are even willing to rope in grandparents for additional funds. Further, they are willing to take loans. However, at the same time, the report comments, parents often “tend to underestimate how long it will take their child to repay their university debts.”
Interestingly, the survey shows that while parents across the world want their children study medicine, in India, they want them to pursue engineering degree, especially computer engineering. And, if the survey is to be believed, they are willing to pay to extra amount for their children’s education to achieve it this. Seven in 10 Indian parents participating in the survey said they would do so.
According to the survey, the US and UK are much less likely to pay for extra academic support for their kids – only about 25 per cent of them said they would do so. Also, their view that university education is too expensive is also quite strong – 71 per cent of them in the two countries think this way.
The survey was carried out in March-April 2015, and appears to have involved largely middle class parents from India. The study says, “Parents in developed economies are more likely to take into account their child’s individual strengths when considering a desired occupation.”
Carried out keeping in view the reach out to parents wanting loan, the study adds, “Parents in India – a country renowned for its emerging technology sector – are more than twice as likely as the average to want their children to go into a job in computer science.”

Comments

TRENDING

India’s climate tech ecosystem in dire need of both early, growth-stage funding: Report

By Our Representative India’s climate tech ecosystem, which boasts over 800 startups, is in dire need of both early and growth-stage funding to leverage its full potential, according to a report by Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (Ventures) and MUFG Bank , Japan. Despite a robust initial funding landscape, with approximately two-thirds of climate tech startups receiving seed capital, growth-stage investments remain critically lacking. 

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

UNEP report on how climate crisis is impacting displacement, global conflicts, declining health

By Shankar Sharma*  A recent report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), titled "A Global Foresight Report on Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing," warrants urgent attention from our country’s developmental perspective. The findings, detailed in the report, should be a source of significant concern not only globally but especially for our nation, which has a vast population and limited natural resources. 

Industries fueling climate crisis draining public funds in Global South: ActionAid

By Our Representative  A new ActionAid report has exposed the alarming financial drain on the Global South, as climate-wrecking industries like fossil fuels and industrial agriculture receive over US$600 billion annually in public subsidies. The report, "How the Finance Flows: Corporate Capture of Public Finance Fuelling the Climate Crisis in the Global South", reveals that an average of US$677 billion in public finance is directed toward climate-destructive sectors each year, depriving crucial social sectors such as education. 

75 years of revolution: How China moved away from ideals of struggle for human liberation

By Harsh Thakor*  On October 1st, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, a pivotal moment in the struggle for human liberation. From 1949 to 1976, China achieved remarkable social equality and revolutionary democracy, outpacing other developing nations in literacy, health care, agricultural output, and industrial production. 

Will Bangladesh go Egypt way, where military ruler is in power for a decade?

By Vijay Prashad*  The day after former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left Dhaka, I was on the phone with a friend who had spent some time on the streets that day. He told me about the atmosphere in Dhaka, how people with little previous political experience had joined in the large protests alongside the students—who seemed to be leading the agitation. I asked him about the political infrastructure of the students and about their political orientation. He said that the protests seemed well-organized and that the students had escalated their demands from an end to certain quotas for government jobs to an end to the government of Sheikh Hasina. Even hours before she left the country, it did not seem that this would be the outcome.

Overcoming extreme backwardness 75 yrs ago, China has 'risen to 2nd largest economy of the world'

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak*  On October 1, 1949, the revolutionary people of China established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) by defeating Western imperialism, Japanese colonialism, and Chinese feudal warlords who unleashed a ‘white terror’ on Chinese people, communists and revolutionaries.