Education Fever: Exploring Private Education Consumption Motivations Among Korean Parents of Preschool Children

Parental investment in education is a common phenomenon in many countries, but in South Korea this investment could be considered exceptional. Researchers have described Koreans’ enthusiasm for education as education fever, or “the national obsession with the attainment of education” (Seth 2002, p. 9). In Korea, household expenditures on education occur primarily for private education services, marketed by private companies rather than public/private preschools, which include a variety of educational programs, such as English, art, and sports academies, as well as reading, math, and writing tutoring (Korea National Statistics Office 2012). Today about 50 % of children in Korea under the age of six participate in one or more private education program and 49 % of Korean preschool parents said that they have faced financial burdens to support such participation (Shin 2014).