The Level Of Education Of China's Rural Residents Determinants

Compared with their urban counterparts, rural residents in China have much lower educational levels. Great regional differences in educational attainment also exist in rural China. Using the data from the 1988 and 1995 Household Income Survey conducted by the Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, this paper analyzes the determinants of educational attainment in rural China and addresses this issue from the perspective of educational poverty, low enrollment rate, the effects of education of parents, and interregional inequality in educational attainment.This paper reveals that both age and gender play important roles in education. Young and male rural residents have educational advantage over their respective counterparts. The fact of the highest education level in eastern region, the lowest in western region and the middle in central region indicates the interregional education inequality in rural China.The data show that educational poverty was alleviated in 1995. Rural residents who are young, male and Han are less likely to live in educational poverty. Counterfactual simulation reveals that increases in county income per capita will reduce the probability of educational poverty. This reduction is sharpest in western region.Male, young and eastern region-resided rural people have higher enrollment rates. Family income has a small positive effect on educational attainment in 1988 and negligible one in 1995. Average years of schooling of rural residents aged between 20 and 25 in a county have a large impact on enrollment rate. This indicates the importance of the supply of education.The education of parents is responsible for that of children. As expected, this paper shows that the higher the educational level of parents, the higher that of their children. However, the impacts of mother are larger than that of farther. There also exist differences in the effects of parents across regions. Parents have large effects on children in regions with lower educational levels.The analysis of the determinants of educational attainment suggests that age and gender are important variables. Average years of schooling of rural residents aged between 20 and 25 in a county have a larger effect on education than county income per capita. Family income and school fees have little effects on education. Off-farm employment increases the opportunity costs of schooling. Policy implications are listed in the concluding part in light of the findings of this paper.