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Regional Disparities of Educational Attainment in China

Author

Listed:
  • Anwar Shah

    (The World Bank)

  • Qinghua Zhang

    (Guanghua School of Management, Peking University)

  • Heng-fu Zou

    (The World Bank)

Abstract

This paper studies regional disparities of educational attainment in China. It explores the causes of the regional inequality of the educational investment measured by the enrolment rate at various school levels. It finds that the return to education, the governmental support and the financial constraint play an important role in generating differences in educational investment across regions. The empirical analysis of the paper also identifies different impacts of the support for education at different levels of government. Specifically, an increase of one standard deviation in the support for education at the level of the central government will raise the enrolment rates of the college, the senior high school and the primary school by 6.1, 7.0 and 7.5 percentage points, which is an increase of 140%, 32% and 9% compared to the sample mean enrolment rate, respectively. Contrastingly, although the ratio of the local government¡¯s educational expenditure to the local GDP has a marginally significant positive impact on the enrolment rate of the primary school, it has a significant and negative effect on the enrolment rates of both the senior high school and the junior high school.

Suggested Citation

  • Anwar Shah & Qinghua Zhang & Heng-fu Zou, 2005. "Regional Disparities of Educational Attainment in China," CEMA Working Papers 192, China Economics and Management Academy, Central University of Finance and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:cuf:wpaper:192
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Wen Tang & Xiangyang Zhang & Youyi Tian, 2022. "Mitigation of Regional Disparities in Quality Education for Maintaining Sustainable Development at Local Study Centres: Diagnosis and Remedies for Open Universities in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-20, November.
    2. Qinghua Zhang & Heng-fu Zou, 2023. "Education in the Rural Sector of China," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 24(1), pages 171-191, May.

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