Public Education Investment And Cognitive Ability Of Migrant Children

China’s imbalanced economic development pattern has led to significant disparities in public services between regions and between urban and rural areas,particularly in terms of educational opportunities and equity.This has partly contributed to the migration and concentration of population in large cities.However,due to rigid public service delivery systems,issues such as education for migrant children,access to housing resources,and healthcare and social security are severe.Of particular concern is the severe challenge to ensure equal educational opportunities for migrant children.This not only seriously hampers the physical and mental development and human capital accumulation of migrant children but also impedes intergenerational mobility and the equalization of social income.Compulsory education,as a fundamental stage of education implemented uniformly by the state,guarantees the development rights of the general population.How can we ensure equal educational opportunities for migrant children?Have existing education fiscal policies yielded positive effects?How can we balance the welfare levels between local and migrant children?These are the main topics to be explored in this paper.Using the China Education Panel Survey(CEPS)database for the years 2013-2014 and 2014-2015,this study firstly investigates the impact of public education funding in destination areas on the cognitive abilities of migrant children.The specific mechanisms through which public education resources exert their influence are analyzed,along with the impact of increased education investment for migrant children on the educational welfare of local children.The study finds that a 1%increase in per capita funding leads to a corresponding 4.34%increase in cognitive ability scores for migrant children.Robustness tests using instrumental variable and quantile regression methods reveal an "inverted U-shaped"relationship between per capita funding and cognitive abilities of migrant children,indicating that public education investment is most helpful for migrant children with intermediate levels of cognitive ability.In terms of mechanism analysis,the study finds that increased public education investment enhances the quantity of hardware facilities in schools,suggesting that hardware facilities play a partially mediating role in the impact of public education on the cognitive abilities of migrant children.Additionally,it is observed that public education investment has a greater impact on cognitive abilities for migrant children with higher class integration and lower social integration,indicating that public education investment can to some extent mitigate the negative impact of low social integration.Furthermore,it is found that increasing education funding for migrant children does not affect the educational welfare of local children,thereby achieving overall Pareto improvement.However,a higher proportion of migrant children and living separately from parents have a negative impact on children’s cognitive abilities.With the gradual expansion of population mobility and migration distances,the government should progressively promote reforms in public education supply in areas experiencing large-scale population inflows.This includes adjusting the allocation of education funds between different levels of government to ensure the right to equal education for migrant children,and improving China’s human capital and labor productivity to address the labor shortage caused by aging and low fertility rates.