China's Rural Labor Mobility, Education, And Rural Children

The educational problem of floating students and left-behind students arises when rural labor migration continues to increase in size. However, little is known about the net effect of labor migration on these children when obstacles in registration and education system still exist. With Sample of both floating and left-behind students, this paper exploits how labor migration affects the educational expenditure and school attainment of floating children. We find: (1) Out-migration contributes significantly to increase the expenditure on child education, with relatively more significant effect on female. (2) The average schooling of floating children reduced significantly after out-migration, though the effect is small and not significant for male, the drop is quite large for female. (3) Compared with little effect for continuing education, out-migration mainly affects compulsory education.