The Estimation And Comparative Analysis Of Return To Education In Urban And Rural China

In literature,it is estimated that the rate of return to education in urban and rural China,the division of urban and rural samples is based on residence or registered permanent residence.In the view of the large number of labor mobility in rural China and the household registration,the way of the divisions of samples in the past,is bound to cause the undervalue of return to education in rural China.Based on the perspective of account migration of rural population,before the estimation of return to education in urban and rural China,samples need to be adjusted.Some rural household once received education in the countryside.They became urban residents by education or work.The people were filtered from the sample range of estimation of the urban household,put into the sample range of estimation of the countryside.Before the estimation of return to the general,high school and college education,the people changed household register after accepting the elementary school,high school and college education were adjusted from the sample of the city to the sample of the countryside.On the basis of the samples before and after the adjustment of urban and rural samples,using ordinary least squares and propensity score matching method,estimates the return to the general,high school and college education in 2005,2007,2009,2010,2011 and 2012.Based on the perspective of rural population account migration,the return to the general,high school and college education in rural China,higher than the rural population of return to education,even in some years,return to college education in rural China higher than the city of samples.Division of urban and rural samples in previous literature,will underestimate return to education in rural China.Overall trends,return to education rise steadily in rural China,the city had downward trend after rising first,Differences of return to education between rural and urban areas is in narrow.According to the empirical results,this paper has the following conclusions and policy suggestions:through the comparative analysis on the estimation of return to education before and after sample adjustment,practical return to education in rural China is higher than the rural population of return to education,higher return to education reflects two aspects of the role of education,on the one hand,education can promote individual human capital,human capital promotion effect of university education is greater than the high school and the following education;on the other hand,the conclusions embodies the household premium effect of education,the rural population by receiving college and above education,especially higher education can overcome the limitation of the household registration,become a city census register population,realize the change of identity,get higher income.Therefore,China should continue to promote the reform of household registration system,promote labor migration and urbanization,attach importance to basic education in rural areas,increase the financial input in education,make the rural residents can accept higher education,change of census register,get better personal development.