Study On The Effect Of Educational Inequality On Income Gap In China

It can be seen from the series of articles “It’s hard to have a good son in a poor family” that the whole society has paid attention and heated discussions: The problem of educational inequality in our country does not seem to be properly resolved.Since the reform and opening-up,with the rapid development of China’s economy,the income gap has also expanded.Education is an important way to accumulate human capital,and the quantity and quality of human capital have an important impact on the income gap.Therefore,studying the relationship between educational inequality and income gap is of great significance to narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor and the prosperity of the country.Based on the theory of human capital,this thesis summarizes the structural effects,compensation effects,and mismatch effects of human capital,and establishes a theoretical analysis mechanism for the impact of educational inequality on income gap.Then using the CGSS database for 9 consecutive years from 2003 to 2015,calculating the income gap and educational inequality of residents in 27 provinces in China.Finally,the Generalized Method of Moments(GMM)was used to measure the empirical model of multiple regression and obtained the following conclusions:Firstly,educational inequality has significantly widened the income gap,educational inequality has increased by 1%,and income inequality has increased by 2.9%;Besides,under the separate effects,the impact coefficients of the inborn educational inequality and the acquired educational inequality on the income gap are 3.2%and 2.1%;But under the combined effect of inborn educational inequality and acquired educational inequality,due to the positive and negative effects of the innate family environment and personal efforts,the acquired inequality of education no longer significantly affects the income gap,indicating the advantages of innate family resource endowment reduced the effect of acquired personal effort.Furthermore,we finds that educational inequality in the eastern region has a more significant impact on income gap,reflecting the high level of economic development,perfect market and more effective transmission mechanism of human capital in the eastern region;The impact of educational inequality on income gap will increase over time;Educational inequality in higher education stage has a greater impact on income gap compared with in basic education stage.Eventually,based on the human capital theory,this article proposes policy recommendations from three different perspectives.National and social level: The government should improve the income distribution system and optimize the distribution structure of education resources;Family level: The government should establish a sound social security system and optimize the structure of the social class;Personal level: The government should strengthen publicity and propagate the idea of hard work and fair competition.