Chinanews, Beijing, March 20 - According to a survey by the Social Investigation Center of China Youth Daily and the Information Center of Tencent, 63.7% of all 3,568 responders believe that their daily expenses will keep rising in 2007.

 

"I am already used to inflation. It's become part of my life," said Tian, a responder. "The money for one head of cabbage today would be enough to buy at least 10 in the past."

 

However, what troubles Tian most is that housing, medicare and raising children can be such heavy burdens today, while they seemed to be quite an easy job for his father's generation.

 

In fact, housing, traffic, childcare and medicare expenses today cost a better part of the income of young people in China, no wonder they dare not invest more money on entertainment and personal development, especially those who are married.

 

The Chinese government has been working hard to suppress the soaring of housing prices and medical expenses in the past few years, but its policies have turned out to be totally ineffective. Take Tian's community as an example, the average price of an apartment there is 3,000 yuan higher per sq m than two years ago.

 

Statistics from the Ministry of Health also show that nearly 49% of Chinese never go to see a doctor when they are ill, because they can't afford the expensive medical expenses.

 

The price of education in China is quite unreasonable, too. Although tuition is not very high, nearly all schools have managed to dish out various pretexts for charging.

 

"No one can avoid those expense that have put too heavy pressures on young people," said Wang Ning, a sociologist from Zhongshan University in Guangdong Province.