Citation
Guo, Maocan (2011). Trends in Educational Stratification in Reform-Era China, 1981-2006. In Suter, Christian (Ed.), Inequality Beyond Globalization: Economic Changes, Social Transformations, and the Dynamics of Inequality (pp. 335-60). Transaction Publishers.Abstract
This study examines the trends in educational stratification during China’s economic reform period from 1981 to 2006. Using panel data from the “China Health and Nutrition Survey”, we match school-age children to their parents’ information and investigate how the family background affects children’s educational transitions change over time in both urban and rural areas. We find that social inequality in the transition to to senior high school first increased then decreased during the reform era, whereas inequaility in the transition to college recently increased. In particular, children from rural backgrounds seem to face more disadvantages in access to higher education in recent yeras, despite the rapid expansion of higher education since the late 1990s.