Mama knows best (and is backed by the State)

It is a long standing joke. The Indian parent looks at their new-born offspring and sees only a doctor or an engineer, the Jewish-American parent boasts about “my son the lawyer” and the Chinese parent thinks the world is made up of only three professions – medicine, medicine and medicine.
Parents from these groups – I will call them aspirant parents - have been choosing their children’s professions for a very long time. And their list of preferred professions have changed very little – all are based on superior education, stability, high earnings and respect (from others).
In these recessionary times, their way of thinking is spreading to other parents who, in better times, would have allowed their offspring free reign. Broadly, because they have invested a great deal of money in their offspring’s university education, they are looking for safe havens for their investment. Some are even talking of a “return” on the money paid in university fees.
A recent survey at the University of Westminster, in England, a country that traditionally saw parents taking a back seat in their children’s professional choices, found that almost a quarter of London University students were “forced” to study their subject because of parental pressure. Few prizes as to which subjects have the most “forced” students. They include medicine, law, accountancy, finance, and more recently, economics.
Recession surveys also to show more students regretting their degree choice. And those subjects seem to be clustered around the humanities and creative subjects. Following one’s heart suddenly seems outmoded unless you have the contacts to prise open doors.
Immigrants have always known that. They rarely have the contacts in the host country, so following one’s heart is far too risky at the best of times. In good times they sometimes give in to “rebellious” offspring as long as they get into the “best” art school and exhibit at the Royal Academy or if they have to study English it should be at Oxford and lead straight to a job reading the news on BBC television. But in bad time like these, parents know best.
Young people coming off the university conveyor belt worry about keeping up with their peers. The main measure is the “graduate starting salary”, usually inflated dramatically by those lucky enough to get a “graduate job”, in order to provoke instant admiration. Final year students soon become aware that the highest starting salaries are in just a few professions: law, medicine, accountancy and finance. Odd that.
Now there is a new champion of the professions. Government-sponsored research last year showed that 75 per cent of judges, 70 per cent of finance directors and a similar proportion of medics went to private schools, which educate only 7 per cent of the population. Something had to be done about the inequity of it, politicians said, in order to increase social mobility.
Among the aspirant groups, the statistics went around like wildfire. While everyone else was debating how these professions could admit more of the less privileged, the whisper among aspirant groups was – which schools did these judges and finance directors attend, and how does one get into them?
This week the government, that used to call for apprenticeships in carpentry and plumbing, was pushing for “10,000 internships” for graduates from “low income” families at top professional law and accountancy firms. In a meritocracy, it is talent and hard work that counts, not connections or wealth, they insisted, but by giving it such a high profile, the way the aspirant groups saw it, the government was doing nothing less than endorsing their own long-held view that these are the professions to aim for.
Mama was right after all and is even backed by the state.
Soon the universities will be full of young people forced to study subjects they do not like. Motivation will be far lower and the drop out rate may even be higher.
But parents will be pleased.
And so will the government.