China’s youth, anxious over job market, trust in science to secure their future
- China’s campaign for self-sufficiency in tech, along with a weak job market, are driving more university entrants into science and engineering
Evon Wang, a high school graduate from Dongguan, grew up dreaming of becoming an English teacher. But when she began to apply for universities and majors late last month, she eventually chose to take her mother’s more pragmatically minded advice.
“An engineering major,” the 18-year-old said, “means a higher rate of employment and better pay.”
In China, getting into a sought-after programme of study is considered a prerequisite to advance up the career ladder. Subjects at the country’s top institutions which tend to correlate with better prospects – finance, law, medicine or computer science, to name a few – are thought to be well worth the gruelling hours of study and high exam scores necessary to secure a spot.
“Education and employment [choices] must keep up closely with government policies,” Wang’s mother said. “Now, the [national] strategy is ‘invigorating China through science and education’, so engineering is the mainstream option.”
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The reasons behind China’s high youth unemployment rate
According to a survey conducted by Zhaopin, a leading online recruitment platform, varieties of engineering occupy 41 slots in the platform’s ranking of the 50 best-paid majors for those with three years of work experience. The remaining places were taken by subjects in science and management, with no arts degrees to be found.
