Gendered pathways to rural schooling: The interplay of wealth and local institutions

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 189, 2007, Pages 60-82

  Davis, Deborah ^a   Landry, Pierre ^a   Peng, Yusheng ^a   Xiao, Jin ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EDUCATION; GENDER DISPARITY; GENDER RELATIONS; GENDER ROLE; PARENTAL INVESTMENT; RURAL AREA; SEX-RELATED DIFFERENCE; SOCIAL STATUS;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST;

EID: 33947380899     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741006000804     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. Central Committee and the State Council "Decisions on strengthening employee training," Central Committee Document No. 8, 20 February 1981, State Council, Beijing, China.
2. Central Committee, "Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu jiaoyutizhi gaige de jueding" ("Central Committee decision on reform of the education system") reprinted in Zhonghua renmin gongheguo jiaoyu falue fangui zonglan (Compilation of Education Laws and Regulations of the PRC) (Beijing: Falü chubanshe, 2000), pp. 2-7.
3. Mun C.Tsang, "Intergovernmental grants and financing of compulsory education in China," paper first presented in June 2001 posted at www.teacherscollege.edu/center/coce.
4. Zhongguo caizheng tongji nianjian 2003 (Chinese Financial Statistics Yearbook 2003), accessed from www.china.infobank.com: "Zhongguo linian zhongyang he difang caizheng zhichu ji bizhong tongji (1953-2002)."
5. These shares add budgetary and extra-budgetary spending as a share of total educational expenditures, as presented in Table 1.
6. Emily Hannum, Jere Behrman and Meiyan Wang, "Human capital in China," presented at Pittsburgh PA, 3 November 2004, available at http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/brandt.
7. Jocelyn Wong Laingok, "School autonomy in China: A comparison between government and private schools within the context of decentralization," International Studies in Educational Administration, Vol. 32, No. 3 (2004), pp. 58-74.
8. On the impact of the post-1994 tax assignment of government/firms ties, see Zhu Hengpeng, "Regional decentralization, fiscal incentives and privatization of public-owned enterprises," China & World Economy, Vol. 12, No. 6 (2004), pp. 24-37.
9. For a discussion of transfers post-1994, see Jun Ma and John Norregaard, "China's fiscal decentralization" (1998) accessed from www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/seminar/2000/idn/china.pdf.
10. Tibet's total transfers amount to 45% of the region's GDP, against a national average of 4%. See Ehtisham Ahmad, Li Keping and Thomas Richardson, "Recentralization in China?" paper presented at the IMF conference of decentralization (2000) available at http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/seminar/2000/fiscal/ahmad.pdf.
11. Su Ming and Zhao Quanzhou, "China's fiscal decentralization reform," paper presented at the international symposium "Fiscal decentralization in Asia revisited," Hitotsubashi University, February 2004, http://www.econ.hit-u.ac.jp/~kokyo/APPPsympo04/China.pdf.
12. The size and ratio of the urban/rural differential varied significantly across provinces and across time, but over the 1990s urban children generally received twice as much public spending and increased over the decade. Zhang Yulin, "Zhonguo jiaoyu bupingdeng qingkuang lanpishu" ("Bluebook on educational inequality in China." Zongguo gaige, November 2004;
13. Eric Harwit, "Spreading telecommunications to developing areas of China," The China Quarterly, No. 180 (2004), p. 1025.
14. Rachel Murphy, "Turning peasants into modern Chinese citizens," The China Quarterly, No. 177 (2004), pp. 10-11.
15. Zhongguo tongji nianjian 2002 (Chinese Statistical Yearbook 2002) (Beiing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2002), Table 10.3.
16. Estimates in national censuses report male/female sex ratios among those 0-4 years of age of 106.5 in 1964, 107.0 in 1982, 109.8 in 1990, 118.8 in 1995 and 120.8 in 2000. Yong Cai and William Lavely, "China's missing girls," China Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (2003), p. 15.
17. Rachel Connelly and Zhenzhen Zheng, "Determinants of school enrollment and completion of 10 to 18 year olds," Economics of Education Review, No. 22 (2003), pp. 379-88;
18. Emily Hannum "Educational stratification by ethnicity in China," Demography, Vol. 39, No. 1 (2002), pp. 95-117.
19. Phil Brown and Albert Park, "Education and poverty in rural China," Economics of Education Review, No. 21 (2001), pp. 523-41.
20. The decline in numbers of children in primary school after 1998 reflects the decline in numbers of births, not decreased enrolment of primary school age children. Xiaoyan Liang "China: Challenges of secondary education," World Bank Report No. 22856 (August 2001) available at http://econ.worldbank.org/topic.php?topic=10.
21. Using the 1989 Health and Nutrition Survey and the 2000 census, Emily Hannum and her colleagues found that between 1989 and 2000 gender disappears as a significant predictor of enrolment. Hannum, Behrman and Wang, "Human capital."
22. Laurel Bossen, Chinese Women and Rural Development: 60 Years of Change in Lu Village, Yunnan (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), pp. 337-38;
23. Emily Hannum, "Poverty and basic education in rural China: Community and household influence on girls' and boys' enrolment," Comparative Education Review, Vol. 47, No. 2 (2003), pp. 141-59;
24. Li Danke and Mun C. Tasang, "Household decisions and gender inequality in education in rural China," China: An International Journal, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2003), pp. 224-48.
25. Connelly and Zheng, "Determinants," pp. 379-88;
26. Hannum, "Educational stratification," pp. 95-117;
27. Brown and Park, "Education and poverty," pp. 523-54;
28. M. Binder, "Family background, gender, and schooling in Mexico," Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 35, No. 2 (1998), pp. 54-71;
29. A. Deolalikar, "Gender differences in the returns to school and in school enrollment rates in Indonesia," Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 28, No. 4 (1993), pp. 899-932.
30. We use the fictional name of "Gaoyuan" as agreed by our institutional sponsor in China.
31. Gaoyuan Statistical Yearbook 2004, pp. 99, 101 and 103.
32. Because of rounding, our sample slightly overdraws the minority stratum. Probability weights were adjusted to account for this small discrepancy in our statistical analyses.
33. At each stage (township, administrative village and natural village) the sampled units were selected with probabilities proportional measures of size (PPS), which ensures that any household in the sample has the same probability of being selected as any other household. Since the number of sampled villages varies by townships, the sample is naturally self-weighting at the administrative village level. By selecting two natural villages in each administrative village, we were able to limit clustering to groups of about 12 households per ziran cun.
34. In each natural village, we randomly selected 30 households. This number was determined based on our expectation of completing an average of 12 interviews per village, taking into account the proportion of households that would not have children within our age range as well as the possibility of non-contact or refusal on the day of household interviews.
35. From UNESCO files available at htttp://www.unescap.org/pop/database/ chinadata.yunnan.htm, accessed 3 July 2003.
36. Among those born between 1985 and 1987, there were 124 boys and 127 girls, between 1988 and 1990, 183 boys and 158 girls, between 1991 and 1993, 149 boys and 133 girls, and between 1994 and 1996, 110 boys and 88 girls.
37. Moreover only 1.3% (six girls and eight boys) had never attended school, and among those nine and older, only three girls and three boys had never enrolled
38. The percentage of households that owned each items was: Bed (100%), table (98%), electric rice cooker (70%), colour television (65%), bicycle (56%), sewing machine (53%), DVD (45%), desk (29%), washing machine (27%), telephone (26%), motor cycle (23%), radio (19%), electric fan (18%), VCR (9%), electric water heater (8%), pressure cooker (8%), bookshelf (6%), camera (6%), refrigerator (6%), microwave oven (1%), computer (0.3%) and air conditioner (0%).
39. Jennifer Adams and Emily Hannum, "Children's social welfare in China, 1989-1997," The China Quarterly, No. 181 (2005), pp. 100-22
40. The possession count excludes the items for which we yield no variation, either because they were present in all households (bed) or absent everywhere (air conditioner).
41. Average age of fathers was 39.5 years with a standard deviation of 6.6. Mothers are 37.4 years old on average, with a standard deviation of 6.1.
42. Previous regression analyses (available from the authors) of our village dataset show that average incomes as reported by village cadres were predicted by the presence or absence of stores or firms. However, in the final model we use the dichotomized variable on the presence or absence of a store or firm because we suspect that village income measures are biased.
43. The four facilities or organizations about which we inquired were: temple to any deity, lineage hall (citang), song and dance troupe, and public meeting hall.
44. -Xβ), where X is matrix of independent variables and y a binary variable. See J. Scott Long, Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables (London: Sage Publications, 1997), pp. 34-84.
45. The best allocation called for drawing two townships in minority areas and three in the Han-dominated stratum. However, given our measures of size, we should have drawn 1.7 (not two) minority townships, hence their slight over-representation.
46. The use of probability weights tends to increase standard error estimates. Our results err therefore on the side of caution. We also performed a number of robustness checks by estimating alternative models that explicitly incorporate survey design effects (without fixed effects by administrative village). Our findings remained unchanged.
47. Coded 1 for Han and 0 otherwise.
48. Namely logit(4.997-1.039)=.98 for boys, and logit(-1.039)=.26 for girls.
49. Hannum, "Poverty and basic education in rural China," p. 157.
50. For girls we need only consider the impact of father's education, which is positive and significant at the .01 level. If we consider boys, the test of joint significance (father's education) + (father's education x boy) show that the net effect is indistinguishable from 0.
51. We do not include mother's Party membership because less than 1% of mothers were Party members.
52. Connelly and Zheng, "Determinants of school enrollment and completion of 10 to 18 year olds," pp. 379-88;
53. Hannum, "Poverty and basic education in rural China," pp. 141-59;
54. Derek Chen, "Gender equality and economic development," World Bank working paper No. 3285 available on line at http://econ.worldbank.org/files/35079_wps3285.pdf.
55. Hannum, "Educational stratification by ethnicity in China," pp. 95-117.
56. Among 683 parent-couples on whom we have full information on ethnicity, in 410 cases both spouses were Han, in 155 or 23% neither parent was Han, and in 118 or 17% one spouse was Han and one non-Han.
57. The likelihood-ratio test shows that the saturated model that includes natural village-level variables has better predictive power that the nested specification with child and household-level variables only. The pure LR-test is significant at the .02 level, but is at the .09 level when forcing the LR estimation with standard errors computed for clustering by village. This confirms the importance of the community in the households' decision to keep children in school.
58. Jonna P. Estudillo, Agnes R. Quisumbing and Keijiro Otsuka, "Gender differences in land inheritance and schooling investments in the rural Philippines, Land Economics, Vol. 77, No. 1 (2001), pp. 130-40.