Estimating the Effects of Educational System Consolidation
The Case of China's Rural School Closure Initiative
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4362801 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emily Hannum (0000-0003-2011-9984, California University of Pennsylvania), Xiaoying Liu (0000-0001-9897-1291, California University of Pennsylvania), Fan Wang (0000-0002-9869-9504, University of Houston) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 485-528 |
| Publication date | 2021-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Economic Development and Cultural Change (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0079 • E-ISSN: 1539-2988 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/711654 |
| OpenAlex | W2809719402 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 13 |
| References cited | 50 |
Global trends of fertility decline, population aging, and rural out-migration are creating pressures to consolidate school systems, with the rationale that economies of scale will enable higher-quality education to be delivered in an efficient manner, despite longer travel distances for students. Yet few studies have considered the implications of system consolidation for educational access and inequality outside of the context of developed countries. We estimate the impact of educational infrastructure consolidation on educational attainment, using the case of China’s rural primary school closure policies in the early 2000s. We use data from a large household survey covering 728 villages in seven provinces and exploit variation in villages’ year of school closure and children’s ages at closure to identify the causal impact of school closure. For girls exposed to closure during their primary school ages, we find an average decrease of 0.60 years of schooling by 2011, when children’s mean age was 17 years old. Negative effects strengthen with time since closure. For boys, there is no corresponding significant effect. Different effects by gender may be related to greater sensitivity of girls’ enrollment to distance and greater responsiveness of boys’ enrollment to quality
China · Closure (psychology) · Consolidation (business) · Context (archaeology) · Demographic economics · Economic growth · Economics · Educational attainment · Educational inequality · Geography · Inequality · Political science · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Demography · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · School Choice and Performance
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| Unique citing works | 13 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,17 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |