While the exact reason for the difference in aspirations is unknown…
The difference is that China has industries, the US has only military industries, and the UK has… TERFs? And one factor that isn’t mentioned is the fact that adults apparently give children quizzes where ‘vlogger’ is a career path; that’s going to make children think that vlogger is a career path for the same reason that poor kids soon forget about wanting to be accountants, lawyers, architects, doctors—they know which jobs are and aren’t options because adults make it clear.
Someone with better mathematics will have to confirm this but the charts are skewed, too. So it’s worse than it seems at first glance. Children could choose up to three, right? The Chinese one really emphasises this, being well over 100%. The fact that the US/UK one is a slope suggests that practically every child chose vlogger, some only vlogger or only two options, with a few willing to choose three. In China, though? Every child chose three and a smaller fraction chose vlogger as an afterthought or maybe as a way of sharing knowledge from/about their primary choice. A handful likely put vlogger as number one, still.
I’d argue that there’s also an aspect of collectivism vs individualism at play here. In China, people see advancing their country as a collective effort. People want to become part of something bigger than themselves. There’s an aspect of inspiration when you see your society achieve great things, and you naturally want to be part of that. So, kids grow up wanting to become an astronaut or an engineer. On the other hand, when you live in a hyper-individualistic culture where personal achievement is seen as peak success, there’s really nothing greater to strive for than being rich and famous. Thus, kids want to become influencers, because that’s seen as a path towards success that society encourages.
The difference is that China has industries, the US has only military industries, and the UK has… TERFs? And one factor that isn’t mentioned is the fact that adults apparently give children quizzes where ‘vlogger’ is a career path; that’s going to make children think that vlogger is a career path for the same reason that poor kids soon forget about wanting to be accountants, lawyers, architects, doctors—they know which jobs are and aren’t options because adults make it clear.
Someone with better mathematics will have to confirm this but the charts are skewed, too. So it’s worse than it seems at first glance. Children could choose up to three, right? The Chinese one really emphasises this, being well over 100%. The fact that the US/UK one is a slope suggests that practically every child chose vlogger, some only vlogger or only two options, with a few willing to choose three. In China, though? Every child chose three and a smaller fraction chose vlogger as an afterthought or maybe as a way of sharing knowledge from/about their primary choice. A handful likely put vlogger as number one, still.
I’d argue that there’s also an aspect of collectivism vs individualism at play here. In China, people see advancing their country as a collective effort. People want to become part of something bigger than themselves. There’s an aspect of inspiration when you see your society achieve great things, and you naturally want to be part of that. So, kids grow up wanting to become an astronaut or an engineer. On the other hand, when you live in a hyper-individualistic culture where personal achievement is seen as peak success, there’s really nothing greater to strive for than being rich and famous. Thus, kids want to become influencers, because that’s seen as a path towards success that society encourages.