The impact of parental education on children’s outcomes in China

This paper exploits the exogenous shock to basic education during the Chinese Cultural Revolution to estimate the causal relationship between parental schooling and children’s educational attainment in China. Using deviations of cohort graduation rates from predicted education trends as instruments for parents’ education, the results indicate that an additional year of parental education increases children’s probability of completing junior and senior high schools by 7.94 and 9.76%, respectively. Parental education not only has positive and significant effects on children’s schooling outcomes, its importance also increases with children’s education level. These findings suggest that public investment in education has important long-term effects on individual’s educational achievement.     

Urban–Rural Differences in Costs of Living and Their Impact on Poverty Measures

This note demonstrates empirically the importance of urban-rural price differences and inflation figures in poverty analysis. Using data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (Survei Sosial Ekonomi Nasional, widely known as Susenas), it shows that the urban-rural food price differential during the period 1987–96 was 13–16%, not 28–52% as impli by the ‘official’ food poverty lines. The urban–rural poverty comparisons and the components of change in simulated poverty estimates presented here therefore differ from those based on the ‘official’ figures. They indicate that migration to urban areas between 1987 and 1996 accounts for a significant part of the observed decline in poverty. The paper concludes that it is essential to use accurate urban–rural cost of living differences in deriving aggregate, urban and rural poverty estimates.     

Rural–urban income disparity: impact of growth,allocative efficiency,and local growth welfare

Historical data of economic development suggest a Kuznets–Williamson type of relationship between economic growth and income disparity. Using China's provincial data, we first try to determine to what extent such a relationship is valid in the urban–rural disparity context. Next, we identify some factors other than economic growth that might have affected urban–rural disparity. In particular, we calculate and compare the inter-sector gross allocation effect (GAE) at the provincial level to discern the impact of labor mobility and allocative efficiency on urban–rural disparity. We also try to evaluate the contribution of local governance to urban–rural disparity by looking into regional differences in effectiveness of economic growth to raise local standard of living. Policy implications of the findings are discussed in the light of China's institutional reforms and development strategies.     

Effect of Migration on Children＇s Self-esteem in Rural China

China＇s rapid economic growth has been facilitated by its large volume of rural to urban migration. China ＇s projected future development, especially increasing urbanization, implies that such migration will further intensify. However, migration does not come without cost. There are concerns about the potential negative impacts of migration on children＇s care, education, and, in particular, the self-esteem of children left behind in villages where one or both parents have out-migrated to cities. In this paper, we employ unique survey data collected from Shaanxi Province, where more than 4700 ninth grade students from 36 rural junior high schools in five counties were surveyed in late 2011. The results show that having both parents migrate into cities significantly reduced children ＂s self-esteem. The effects are also gender sensitive. Girls that had a father or both parents who had out-migrated were inclined to have lower self-esteem than boys. Moreover, our study findings indicate that parental migration decreased children ＂s self-esteem more for individuals with initial low self-esteem.     

Analysis on Chinese Inequity in Health between the Urban and the Rural

Firstly the paper introduces the concept of the inequity in health, the method of measurement of inequity in health which is usually used to measure the inequity of income. Then we statistically describe the inequity in health between the urban and the rural in China, and analyze the correlative of the variety of income allocation and the variety of inequity in health.     

The impact of gender differences on determinants of job satisfaction among Chinese off–farm migrants in Jiangsu

This study examines the effect of own income versus reference group income and the subjective factors considered important in a job for a sample of off–farm migrants in China. We find that own income has a positive effect on job satisfaction while the effect of reference group income is gender specific. We find evidence that males experience a tunnelling effect (higher income co-workers increase their job satisfaction) while females experience a jealousy effect (higher income co-workers lower their job satisfaction). We explain this result in terms of men reacting more positively in competitive environments and that, in China, males have better prospects for promotion. We find that compared with employees in western countries, off–farm migrants in China place much more emphasis on income and less importance on collegiality and job stability.     

Wage growth and inequality in urban China: 1988–2013

We investigate the evolution of wage levels, wage inequality, and wage determinants among urban residents in China using China Household Income Project data from 1988, 1995, 2002, 2007, and 2013.Average wage grew impressively between each pair of years. Wage inequality had long been on the increase, but between 2007 and 2013 no clear changes occurred. In 1988, age and wages were positively related throughout working life, but more recently older workers' wages have been lower than those of middle-aged workers. The relationship between education and wages was weak in 1988 but strengthened rapidly thereafter—a process that came to a halt in 2007.During the period in which China was a planned economy the gender wage gap was small in urban China, but it widened rapidly between 1995 and 2007. We also report the existence of a premium for being employed in a foreign-owned firm or in the state sector.     

Has education led to secularization? Based on the study of compulsory education law in China

Has education led to secularization? Using microdata from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), we take the implementation of the Compulsory Education Law (CEL) in 1986 in China as the instrumental variables (IV) for personal educational attainment. We study the causal effect of education on personal religious beliefs and explore the potential mechanisms. The empirical results show that education can lead to secularization. More precisely, individual religious belief decreases by 1.5% with one additional year of personal education. In addition, the increase in regional urbanization significantly affects religious beliefs by replacing the insurance function of religion and reducing information acquisition costs. Moreover, there is an alternative relationship between religious activities and social activities, and women affected by the CEL experience a higher negative impact on religious beliefs than men.     

Women's Economic Status in Rural China: Household Contributions to Male–Female Disparities in the Wage–Labor Market

Rapid industrial growth in China coupled with economic reforms in the rural areas has created a growing demand for rural women's labor, though often at substantially lower wages than those earned by men employed in the same sector. An analysis of data collected in rural Guangdong province suggests that households may contribute to the observed male–female market wage differential through their influence in the formation of individuals' reservation wages. Under these circumstances, external employment opportunities, while no doubt serving to increase the household's overall level of income, may, on their own, be a less effective mechanism for raising the economic status of women. On the contrary, market wage signals may serve to reinforce, rather than to ameliorate, sex-based differences that arise within the household.     

Factors impacting on the primary school education of emigrants’ children: The case of Gwanda South,Zimbabwe

The factors that impact on the primary school education of children left behind by cross-border circular emigrants in a poor rural community are examined. Data collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions from the emigrants’ children, their teachers, guardians or parents and from community leaders gave insight into these factors. The findings showed that the main factor impacting positively on the education of the emigrants’ children was the ability of the parents to support their children’s education financially. The separation of the emigrants’ children from their parents was a factor that impacted most negatively on their education.     

Economic transition and the determinants of self-employment in urban China: 2007–2013

Abstract

Why was there a large growth in self-employment in urban China during the economic transition period? There are two hypotheses proposed to answer this: the disguised unemployment hypothesis that there is no opportunity to access the formal sector to gain better work, and the business creation hypothesis that successful business owners create new jobs for others, new business opportunities, and many innovative new products for society, as pointed out in previous studies. Using CHIP2007 and CHIP2013, this paper tests the two hypotheses. The main conclusions are as follows: First, generally, utilizing the imputed wage premiums, which were used in previous studies, the business creation hypothesis is rejected; the disguised unemployment hypothesis is supported for both the local urban resident and the migrant groups in 2007 and 2013. Second, the results that utilized the new wage premiums based on the imputed employee wages in the private sector show that the business creation hypothesis is supported when a worker chose to become an employer for both the migrant group and the local urban resident group in 2013. Third, the business creation hypothesis is relevant for the older generation group of local urban residents in 2013.     

Rural to urban land conversion in China — How large is the over-conversion and what are its welfare implications?

The current system of converting farmland to urban land use in China can be characterized as a hybrid system that combines government controls with market-based transfers. In this paper we argue that this hybrid governance structure causes an over-conversion of farmland from the rural to the urban sector, as compared to a competitive market situation, and a welfare reallocation that discriminates against farmland owners. We develop a partial equilibrium model that can be used to examine the impact of the current hybrid governance structure on the over-conversion of farmland and to analyze the welfare changes for different groups of actors and the resulting net social welfare loss. Using a dataset with detailed information on farmland acquisitions and urban land transactions in Yingtan City in Jiangxi Province, we illustrate how this framework can be applied. Our results indicate an over-conversion of 33.5% of the total converted farmland in this city between 1999 and 2003. The welfare of farmland owners affected by the conversion decreased by 1.38 billion RMB, while the net social welfare loss equaled more than 270 million RMB during the same period. The local government obtained 380 million RMB of revenues by re-selling farmland as urban land through competitive conveyance mechanisms between 2002 and 2005, while the manufacturing sector gained an estimated 280 million RMB from buying land use rights at relatively low prices. We conclude that the current policy of increasing urban land conveyance through competitive mechanisms does not address two major underlying causes of over-conversion, and that protection of farmland would be better served by replacing the current hybrid rural to urban land market structure by a competitive land market.     

A Note on Push–Pull Analysis in Macroeconomics

Atlantic Economic Journal -     

Glass ceiling effect in urban China: Wage inequality of rural-urban migrants during 2002–2007

The paper studies the levels and changes in wage inequality among Chinese rural-urban migrants during 2002–2007. Using data from two waves of national household surveys, we find that wage inequality among migrants decreased significantly between 2002 and 2007. Our analysis on the wage distribution further shows that the high-wage migrants experienced slower wage growth than middle- and low-wage migrants—a primary cause of declining inequality of migrants. By using distributional decomposition methods based on quantile regression, we find that an overall between-group effect dominates in the whole wage distribution, which means that the change in returns to the characteristics (education, experience and other employment characteristics) plays a key role, but on the upper tails of the wage distribution, the within group effect (residual effect) dominates, implying that the unobservable factors or institutional barriers do not favor the migrants at the top tail of the wage distribution. We also study wage differential between migrants and urban natives, and find that though the wage gap is narrowed, the gap at the upper wage distribution is becoming bigger. Overall, the results suggest that there exists a strong “glass ceiling” for migrants in the urban labor market.     

Income distribution in the mirror of height differences: The case of Spain 1895–1950

Changes in the differences of heights among social groups could indicate shifts in income inequality. However, they can result from other factors as well. This article discusses which factors are these and, hence, which variables should we control for before taking height differences as a proxy for income inequality. An application to Spain from late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century seems to sustain the authors' contentions, and provide some conclusions for this country and time period. Given the scarcity of data on family incomes, this method could prove valuable for the study of the long-run evolution of income distribution in other countries.     

What accounts for the decline in labor force participation among married women in urban China, 1991–2011?

Since the advent of Communist movement in the 1940s, women in China have been portrayed as equal partners to men in their labor force participation, operating under slogans such as “Women hold up half the sky”. Political rhetoric in the Mao era suggested that gender parity could be attained through women's participation in paid employment and full time work outside the home became routine for most urban women. Subsequent to the reforms, however, China has experienced a sharp decline in urban women's labor force participation. Utilizing micro-level data spanning from 1991 to 2011, individual women's labor force decisions are analyzed in order to identify the reasons for the decline. Changes in covariates explain only a small portion of the observed decline. However, over the study interval the wage returns to education increased markedly, and the distribution of wages widened considerably. These factors, combined with a high wage elasticity of participation, are consistent with the pattern of declining labor force participation found in the data. As such, promotion of women's education, particularly at the upper secondary level and beyond, could be expected to offset the downward trend.     

Regional Inequalities and Its Determinants in Rural China：An Empirical Study Based on Agricultural Household Level Data

Using 1000 agricultural household survey data in 2002, this paper employs Gini coefficient and the Theft index to explore the regional inequalities and its determinants in rural China. We first measure the overall rural income inequality, and then decompose it by region and by factor （source of income） respectively. Third, we construct an econometric model to analyze the determinants affecting the income inequality indexes. Our main finding is that although Gini coefficient and Theft index is at a normal level, we need to point out that there exists a risk that the income inequality may climb up with the misbalanced growth of regional economy without taking adequate policy into account. At the end of this paper, policy suggestion is given： governments should offer more financial support for the less developed rural areas, where income level is quite low. An alternative choice is to enhance the transfer payment for the low-income people, and help them to get access to profitable economic project. In the long run, it is especially important to strengthen the farmers＇ professional training, and to increase their migrant ability to nonagricultural career.     

Does Education Still Pay Off in Rural China： Revisit the Impact of Education on Off-farm Employment and Wages

The present study considers how education affects off-farm job participation and wages. We use a nationally representative dataset from a survey conducted in 5 provinces, 101 villages and 808 households by the authors in early 2005. The empirical results show that educational attainment, skill training and years of experience of rural residents have positive, statistically significant effects on off-farm employment. The average return to a year of education is 7percent, which is higher than those observed in previous studies. We also find the return to an additional year of schooling to be higher for post-junior high schooling than for junior high and below schooling： 11.8 versus 3.2 percent. We conclude that not only does education still pays off in rural China, but also the rate of return to education is increasing over time.     

Fuelling the urban economy: A comparative study of energy in the Low Countries, 1600–1850

What was the role of energy in shaping modern economies and fuelling the transition to sustained economic growth? In the historiography on the industrial revolution, the transition to fossil energy carriers plays a central role. Despite recent efforts to gather new empirical evidence, long-term comparative studies on energy transitions and their economic impact before and during the first industrial revolution remain rare. As a contribution to this literature, this article presents new quantitative data on energy consumption from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries in the Low Countries. To explore differences in the chronology and impact of energy transitions, we compare the total levels of energy consumption, the energy mix, and the prices of fuels between two cities in the northern and southern Low Countries: Leiden and Ghent. This analysis enables us to explore more clearly which factors played a key role in the interaction between energy, economic growth, and industrialisation. The transition towards a cheap-energy economy in Holland was associated with economic growth, but not with mechanisation. On the other hand, the rapid mechanisation process in Ghent was associated not with a cheap-energy economy (relative to that of Leiden), but more specifically with a cheap-coal economy.