IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/crm/wpaper/26034.html

Unintended Consequences of China’s Double Reduction Policy: Its Immediate and Intergenerational Impacts

Author

Listed:
  • Xin Liu
  • Xin Meng
  • Guangqian Pan
  • Guochang Zhao

Abstract

This paper evaluates the unintended consequences of China's 2021 "Double Reduction" policy, which aimed to ease students' academic burden by limiting homework and private tutoring. Using a tailored household survey, a constructed policy enforcement index, and a difference-in-differences design, we find that the policy increased private tutoring enrollment, household tutoring expenditures, and parental time spent on helping children with schoolwork. These effects disproportionately harmed low-income families, resulting in worse academic outcomes. Our findings suggest that the policy's effects run counter to its intended goals and may exacerbate educational inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Xin Liu & Xin Meng & Guangqian Pan & Guochang Zhao, 2026. "Unintended Consequences of China’s Double Reduction Policy: Its Immediate and Intergenerational Impacts," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 26034, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    • Handle: RePEc:crm:wpaper:26034
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rfberlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/26034.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • D04 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Policy: Formulation; Implementation; Evaluation
    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation

    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:crm:wpaper:26034. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Moritz Lubczyk or Matthew Nibloe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cmucluk.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.