Households in the top 20 percent income bracket spend around eight times more on their children’s private education than those in the bottom 20 percent.

This is according to an analysis conducted by ruling Democratic Party(DP) lawmaker Kim Hoi-jae of a Statistics Korea household expenditure survey. 

According to Kim on Tuesday, the top 20 percent of households that have children aged between seven and 18 spent 872-thousand won a month on average for their children’s private education as of the third quarter 2021.

That’s eight times the 108-thousand won that households in the bottom 20 percent income bracket spent on private education during the same period.

The survey also found that the gap in education among the parents’ generation led to a gap in a household’s income, which then resulted in an education gap among the children’s generation. 

According to the survey, 70-point-five percent of households with a head that has only an elementary school education were in the bottom 40 percent income bracket. Of that total, nearly 37 percent were in the bottom 20 percent. 

Meanwhile, nearly 80 percent of households whose head is university or graduate school-educated were in the top 40 percent income bracket and of that total, 48-point-five percent were in the top 20 percent.