Ordinary Residents Of The Shanghai Urban And Rural Household Expenditure On Education And Educational Burden Status Of Empirical Research

Based on the data and interview collected in Shanghai urban and rural residents during June 2008-December 2008, the paper explored and studied the household investment in children's education and the financial burden on the household.The result shows that family expenditure on children's education is "U"-type distribution, the pay for different levels of education is different; Compared to the towns and the city family, not only the absolute education investment and the structure of education expenditures are different for the rural family, but also they are weak in the affordability; Both the total expenditure on education and the financial burden on the household are vary from different income families; If the number of school children is more, the burden of family's education is heavier, but children don't dilute the family's educational resources.Further, the paper discusses the reason why different household has different education expenditure. Studies have shown that if the family earn more 1000 Yuan, they will pay more 45 Yuan for children's education; Compared to the families whose children attend kindergarten, the family with children in elementary and junior high school will pay less 2232.28 Yuan and 2,096.40 Yuan on children's education, and the family with children studying in high school and university will pay more 1198.41 Yuan and 7574.19 Yuan; If more than one child are at school, the parents will pay more 6970.60 Yuan for educational; Compared with the rural families, towns and city households are spending more 1379.63 Yuan and 724.85 Yuan for children's education; To some extent, the family education expense is affected by the education level of parent, especially, the mother with high education will pay more 583.89 Yuan for children's education than the mothers with the education of junior secondary and lower level. But the gender of children has invariables impact on family education investment.Studies also have shown that nowadays, general people in Shanghai are quite easily able to pay for the public education of the junior high school and lower levels, the education spending of senior secondary and higher levels has a great impact on families, especially to the low-income residents. However, according to ManChao Zeng' standard (if the family pay more than 20% of the total expenditure for children's education on the stage of compulsory education, the financial burden on the household is too heavy), the financial burden of pubic education for Shanghai residents is not heavy, even the child in the high school, the education burden of his family is also only 20.01%.Therefore, the decision-makers can make the education develop healthily by three approaches: the first is guiding the residents to set a correct concept of investment in education, the second is making financial grants to the low-income families and multi-child families; and the third is focusing on the quality of education to narrow the differences between schools and administering the private education and education abroad at the same time.