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From Rural Schools to City Factories: Assessing the Quality of Chinese Rural Schools

Author

Listed:
  • Eric A. Hanushek
  • Le Kang
  • Xueying Li
  • Lei Zhang

Abstract

The changing pattern of quality in China’s rural schools across time and province is extracted from the differential labor market earnings of rural migrant workers. Variations in rates of return to years of schooling across migrant workers working in the same urban labor market but having different sites of basic education provide for direct estimation of provincial school quality. Corroborating this approach, these school quality estimates prove to be highly correlated with provincial cognitive skill test scores for the same demographic group. Returns to quality increase with economic development level of destination cities. Importantly, quality appears higher and provincial variation appears lower for younger cohorts, indicating at least partial effectiveness of more recent policies aimed at improving rural school quality across provinces. Surprisingly, however, provincial variations in quality are uncorrelated with teacher-student ratio or per student spending.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric A. Hanushek & Le Kang & Xueying Li & Lei Zhang, 2025. "From Rural Schools to City Factories: Assessing the Quality of Chinese Rural Schools," CESifo Working Paper Series 12017, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12017
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Eric Hanushek & Ludger Woessmann, 2012. "Do better schools lead to more growth? Cognitive skills, economic outcomes, and causation," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 267-321, December.
    2. Hanushek, Eric A & Rivkin, Steven G & Taylor, Lori L, 1996. "Aggregation and the Estimated Effects of School Resources," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(4), pages 611-627, November.
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    6. Kaivan Munshi, 2003. "Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 549-599.
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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

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