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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," NBER Working Papers 34005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34005
    Note: DEV ED LS
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • J69 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Other
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

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