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Return of migrant workers, educational investment in children and intergenerational mobility in China

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  • Junwu, Xu
  • Zhaoxiong, Chen
  • Junjie, Wu

Abstract

The slowdown in China’s economic growth in the past decade has forced many migrant workers to return or plan to return to their rural hometowns temporarily. Extant studies on intergenerational mobility pay less attention to temporary migrant households. This paper investigates how migrant father’s return intention influences children’s educational outcomes and permanent incomes using a high-quality nationwide dataset of China (CLDS2012-2018). It finds that though there is no significant correlation between fathers’ and children’s educational attainments, the higher the return probability of the father, the less educational investment he would make in his child. This paper contributes to the literature in two ways: theoretically, it provides a new perspective to observe the intergenerational mobility of migrant workers; and methodologically, it corrects life cycle bias by controlling for the ages of fathers and children and using multi-year mean incomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Junwu, Xu & Zhaoxiong, Chen & Junjie, Wu, 2022. "Return of migrant workers, educational investment in children and intergenerational mobility in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 997-1009.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:76:y:2022:i:c:p:997-1009
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2022.10.005
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intergenerational mobility; Migrant workers; Return migration; Educational investment; Intergenerational income elasticity; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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