Educational Inequality and Regional Disparities: Institutional Reforms and Their Impact

[2C205] The Inequality of fundamental Educational Opportunity in China

*Feng LI¹ (1. CHUO UNIVERSITY)

Keywords:Fundamental Education, Shapley Decomposition, Inequality of Opportunity, Hukou, Gender

This study analyzes educational inequality in China by measuring the Shapley Decomposition and Inequality of Opportunity of the academic performance of Chinese, Math and English. I calculate the Shapley Decomposition and Inequality of Opportunity using micro-sample data from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS). The Chinese model shows that parents’ work and education account for 49.86 in urban hukou students. By contrast, parents’ work and education account for 29.46 in rural hukou students. One child account for 22.01 in urban in, but it accounts for 0.63 in rural. It is worthy notice that gender accounts for 64.66 in rural. In other words, students who is from rural hukou depend on themselves by achieving Chinese scores. And so is the same tendency in English model. The gender accounts 71.41. While the Math model shows that the students who from rural hukou can hold a candle to urban hukou, the share of urban hukou’s parents’ work and education are still higher than rural hukou. From Shapley decomposition, it is worthy notice that urban hukou’s parents’ work and education of circumstances are higher than rural hukou.Finally, the results of inequality of opportunity show that total relative inequality of opportunity (IOP(r) or equivalently the IOP(a)) are 11.25 percent, 9.73 percent and 16.67 percent in Chinese, Math and English, respectively. It finds that relative inequality of opportunity in Chinese, Math and English in urban is bigger than in rural. Relative inequality of opportunity in rural are 8.13, 3.43 and 10.77 in Chinese, Math and English, respectively. By contrast, Relative inequality of opportunity in urban are 14.53, 15.72 and 19.07 in Chinese, Math and English, respectively.