The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Disruptions to Education, and Returns to Schooling in Urban China
In determining whether a country's higher education system should be expanded, it is important for policymakers first to determine the extent to which high private returns to post-secondary education are an indication of the scarcity of gradua...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2008/09/9887676/great-proletarian-cultural-revolution-disruptions-education-returns-schooling-urban-china http://hdl.handle.net/10986/6946 |
| Summary: | In determining whether a country's
higher education system should be expanded, it is important
for policymakers first to determine the extent to which high
private returns to post-secondary education are an
indication of the scarcity of graduates instead of the high
unobserved ability of students who choose to attend
post-secondary education. To this end, the paper identifies
the returns to schooling in urban China using
individual-level variation in educational attainment caused
by exogenous city-wide disruptions to education during the
Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. For city-cohorts who
experienced greater disruptions, children's educational
attainment became less correlated with that of their fathers
and more influenced by whether their fathers held
administrative positions. The analysis calculates returns to
college education using data from the China Urban Labor
Survey conducted in five large cities in 2001. The results
are consistent with the selection of high-ability students
into higher education. The analysis also demonstrates that
these results are unlikely to be driven by sample selection
bias associated with migration, or by alternative pathways
through which the Cultural Revolution could have affected
adult productivity. |
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