IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ris/adbiwp/0834.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Three Generations of Changing Gender Patterns of Schooling in the People’s Republic of China

Author

Listed:
  • McGarry, Kathleen

    (Asian Development Bank Institute)

  • Sun, Xiaoting

    (Asian Development Bank Institute)

Abstract

The phenomenon of son preference in the People’s Republic of China and throughout much of Asia has been well documented. However, changing economic conditions, such as increases in educational attainment and employment opportunities for women and the rise in the prevalence of one-child families, have likely changed the incentives for parents to invest in daughters. We take advantage of data spanning three generations of Chinese families to examine the evolution of educational attainment for boys and girls and importantly the relative levels of schooling of each gender. We also use variation in the timing of compulsory schooling laws and the implementation of the one-child policy to assess the effect of these policy measures on the relative educational levels. We find a substantial narrowing of the gap between the schooling of boys and girls, so much so that girls now have more schooling on average than boys. In addition, public policy initiatives had a larger effect in rural than urban areas.

Suggested Citation

  • McGarry, Kathleen & Sun, Xiaoting, 2018. "Three Generations of Changing Gender Patterns of Schooling in the People’s Republic of China," ADBI Working Papers 834, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0834
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/418476/adbi-wp834.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. G. Gandhi Kingdon, 2002. "The Gender Gap in Educational Attainment in India: How Much Can Be Explained?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 25-53.
    2. Rohini Pande, 2003. "Selective gender differences in childhood nutrition and immunization in rural India: The role of siblings," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(3), pages 395-418, August.
    3. Song, Lina & Appleton, Simon & Knight, John, 2006. "Why Do Girls in Rural China Have Lower School Enrollment?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1639-1653, September.
    4. Chyi, Hau & Zhou, Bo, 2014. "The effects of tuition reforms on school enrollment in rural China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 104-123.
    5. Vinod Mishra & T. K. Roy & Robert D. Retherford, 2004. "Sex Differentials in Childhood Feeding, Health Care, and Nutritional Status in India," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 30(2), pages 269-295, June.
    6. Céline Lecavelier des Etangs-Levallois & Arnaud Lefranc, 2017. "Sibling correlations in terms of education, profession and earnings, in France," THEMA Working Papers 2017-12, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    7. Connelly, Rachel & Zheng, Zhenzhen, 2003. "Determinants of school enrollment and completion of 10 to 18 year olds in China," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 379-388, August.
    8. Tin-chi Lin, 2009. "The decline of son preference and rise of gender indifference in Taiwan since 1990," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 20(16), pages 377-402.
    9. Li, Li & Liu, Haoming, 2014. "Primary school availability and middle school education in rural China," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 24-40.
    10. Woojin Chung & Monica Das Gupta, 2007. "The Decline of Son Preference in South Korea: The Roles of Development and Public Policy," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 757-783, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yijie Wang & Yanan Zhang, 2022. "“As Good as a Boy†But Still a Girl: Gender Equity Within the Context of China’s One-Child Policy," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(1), pages 21582440221, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tin-chi Lin & Alícia Adserà, 2013. "Son Preference and Children’s Housework: The Case of India," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 32(4), pages 553-584, August.
    2. Keera Allendorf, 2012. "Like daughter, like son? Fertility decline and the transformation of gender systems in the family," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(16), pages 429-454.
    3. Rajat Deb, 2016. "Determinants of Savings in Sukanya Samriddhi Account: Evidence from Tripura," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 5(2), pages 120-140, July.
    4. Cui, Ying & Liu, Hong & Zhao, Liqiu, 2019. "Mother's education and child development: Evidence from the compulsory school reform in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 669-692.
    5. Valentine Becquet & Nicolás Sacco & Ignacio Pardo, 2022. "Disparities in Gender Preference and Fertility: Southeast Asia and Latin America in a Comparative Perspective," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 41(3), pages 1295-1323, June.
    6. Kumar, Vineet & Singh, Kaushalendra Kumar & Kumar, Prakash & Singh, Pragya, 2021. "Does family composition drive future fertility desire and contraceptive use? An evidence based on National Family Health Survey (2015–2016), India," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    7. Neeraj Kaushal & Felix M. Muchomba, 2018. "Missing time with parents: son preference among Asians in the USA," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 397-427, April.
    8. Qianqian Shang & Quanbao Jiang & Yongkun Yin, 2022. "How Does Children's Sex Affect Parental Sex Preference: Preference Adaptation and Learning," Working Papers wp2022_2202, CEMFI.
    9. Haepp, Tobias & Lyu, Lidan, 2018. "The Impact of Primary School Investment Reallocation on Educational Attainment in Rural Areas of the People’s Republic of China," ADBI Working Papers 821, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    10. Ridhi Kashyap & Julia Behrman, 2020. "Gender Discrimination and Excess Female Under-5 Mortality in India: A New Perspective Using Mixed-Sex Twins," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(6), pages 2143-2167, December.
    11. Peng, Fei & Anwar, Sajid & Kang, Lili, 2022. "Number of siblings, access to treated water and returns to education in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 526-538.
    12. Xi Zhang & Scott Rozelle, 2022. "Education Universalization, Rural School Participation, and Population Density," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(4), pages 4-30, July.
    13. Luojia Hu & Analía Schlosser, 2015. "Prenatal Sex Selection and Girls’ Well‐Being: Evidence from India," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1227-1261, September.
    14. Scott South & Katherine Trent & Sunita Bose, 2014. "Skewed Sex Ratios and Criminal Victimization in India," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(3), pages 1019-1040, June.
    15. Seema Jayachandran & Ilyana Kuziemko, 2011. "Why Do Mothers Breastfeed Girls Less than Boys? Evidence and Implications for Child Health in India," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1485-1538.
    16. Anna‐Maria Aksan, 2022. "Son preference and the demographic transition," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 32-56, February.
    17. Choi, Jin Young & Lee, Sang-Hyop, 2006. "Does prenatal care increase access to child immunization? Gender bias among children in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 107-117, July.
    18. Lee, Jinkook & Smith, James P., 2014. "Regional disparities in adult height, educational attainment, and late-life cognition: Findings from the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI)," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 4(C), pages 26-34.
    19. Ilke Onur & Malathi Velamuri, 2016. "A Life Course Perspective on Gender Differences in Cognitive Functioning in India," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 520-563.
    20. Kelly Jones, 2014. "Growing Up Together: Cohort Composition and Child Investment," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(1), pages 229-255, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    compulsory schooling; one-child policy; gender differences in education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ris:adbiwp:0834. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ADB Institute (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/adbinjp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.