(Obvious answer is socialism but I would like more specifics)
Often China, South Korea and Japan are treated as the “big three” of stress and expectations. Between their similar college entrance exams, demanding work schedules and environments, and social expectations for people to work hard and get rich and such.
But looking at suicide rates (which are only one piece of the puzzle of course) China places fairly low, at about 6.7 per 100,000 according to Wikipedia, half of Japan’s and nearly a quarter of south korea’s. Interestingly this is not just a cultural difference, as the Chinese province of Taiwan reports about 16 per 100,000 people, which is even higher than Japan. It also isn’t the just case of a high density population compared to low density like Finland and Iceland, since Japan and the ROK fit this designation as well (as well as India, who has a rate even higher than Japan’s)
The obvious answer is socialism, but that’s a little broad and not how you actually solve things. Not to mention that cuba has a decently high rate too (although considering their current impoverishment it’s not surprising). So what happened specifically? Poverty alleviation sure but that can’t be all of it, I don’t think so anyway.
(Additional notes and questions
A.The DPRK has a rate of 8, nearly a third of the ROK, suck it fake korea
B.Why is venezuala’s rate so low? From the source Wikipedia uses its one of the lowest in the world, despite the generally high poverty and instability
C.Why is Afganistan’s so low? Unsure if anyone has a concrete answer to this but I’m curious)
1/ unsure for every case
2/ don’t have enough data but just stating the trend: the top ranked schools are all public, just check out the rankings, tip top ones are all public nonprofit.
3/ I’m not super familiar with the entire landscape to know if all public schools are strictly better or not; I’m just aware of general public opinion that private schools are more expensive and more mid. Generally, less prestigious. However, at least as a personal observation, wealthier parents tend to choose to find a way for their kid to go to an overseas university if they don’t like the private schooling options after midling gaokao results. (as american born chinese these wealthy “princess complex” international classmates colored my impression of mainlanders for a while during my uni years… i suppose that’s both to my own and their detriment :/ it is what it is)
iirc rural area hukou students and ethnic minority students get boosted points for gaokao also, there’s definitely affirmative action in that regard.
edit: clarity