Research On The Effect Of Non-cognitive Ability On Rural Women’s Return Of Education Investment

In recent years,the State Council have issued a series of opinions on women’s development and rural development,all pointing to the need to raise the income levels of women in rural areas,and increasingly demonstrating the importance the Party and State attach to the income levels of rural women.The new theory of human capital from the mid-20 th century,suggests that educational attainment has a direct or indirect effect on wage earnings,with the cognitive and non-cognitive abilities of individuals being very important mediating variables.However,early research on the returns to education has focused on examining cognitive abilities such as literacy,numeracy or science,somewhat neglecting other non-cognitive abilities that are related to personal development and economic output.Based on this,this study explores the impact of education on rural women’s income levels,with a focus on exploring the mediating role of non-cognitive abilities and establishing the mechanism of influence between education,non-cognitive abilities and income.Rural women were taken as the research object,and structural equation modeling(SEM)and instrumental variables method(IV)were used based on the 2018 China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)data to try to explore the effect of non-cognitive ability on rural women’s return on education investment based on Bowers’ human capital expansion model.First,the influencing factors of rural women’s wage income were explored,and a multiple regression model was established by constructing a composite indicator of non-cognitive ability from five dimensions of dutifulness,agreeableness,extroversion,openness,and emotional stability.Second,a mediation model was developed based on the regression results to explore the existence and geometry of the effect of education on wage income through the influence of non-cognitive ability,and a Monte Carlo simulation method was used to test the mediation effect.Again,heterogeneity tests are conducted from three perspectives:regional differences,income level,and household gender interaction groups.Finally,targeted policy recommendations are proposed from the perspective of rural female subjects.The empirical findings are as follows: 1)Non-cognitive ability plays a weak mediating role between education and income of rural females.The mediating effect of non-cognitive ability composite index between education and income of rural women was significant but did not pass the Bootstrap mediating effect test;the mediating effect of non-cognitive ability characterized by openness between education and income of rural women was significant but small,at 3.1%;the mediating effect of non-cognitive ability characterized by extraversion,affinity,dutifulness,and emotional stability on education and income of rural women was not mediated.The mediating effect of non-cognitive abilities characterized by extraversion,affinity,responsibility and emotional stability on rural women’s return on investment in education was not significant.2)The impact of non-cognitive abilities on rural women’s wage income varies across representations.Non-cognitive abilities characterized by openness,extroversion,emotional stability,and dutifulness can promote rural women’s wage income;non-cognitive abilities characterized by agreeableness have a negative effect on rural women’s wage income;from openness,extroversion,emotional stability,dutifulness to agreeableness,the effects of their characterized non-cognitive abilities on rural women’s wage income decrease from left to right.3)The impact of noncognitive abilities on returns to educational investment varies across groups.Non-cognitive abilities characterized by openness play a mediating role in the effect of years of education on rural males’ wage income;non-cognitive abilities characterized by emotional stability have a mediating effect in the effect of years of education on rural males’ wage income;non-cognitive abilities characterized by extraversion,dutifulness and agreeableness do not mediate the returns to educational investment in other groups.Based on the above conclusions,the following suggestions are put forward: first,increase the opportunities for rural women to receive high-level education and reverse the state of education aphasia;The second is to improve the non-cognitive ability of rural women to expand the income and income benefits;The third is to optimize the employment environment of rural women and give play to the economic value of non-cognitive ability.