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Title: The Long-Run Impact of Higher Education: Evidence from the Gaokao Reinstatement in China

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2023

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Abstract: Whereas there is a large literature evaluating the impacts of education, most of the focus until recently has been on getting to universal primary enrollment and under- standing the returns to basic education; but it misses the major shifts towards higher education in many fast-growing parts of the developing world over the last 20 years. Moreoever, it is not well studied how the impacts of higher education on various life outcomes evolve over an individual’s life cycle. In this paper, I study the returns to higher education in China using the reinstatement of the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) in 1977 as a natural experiment, investigating the causal impacts of higher education on later life outcomes and well-being. I use two recent censuses (1990 and 2000) to investigate discontinuous changes in the likelihood of completing high school and attending college around a cutoff birth date. Through a combination of regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference methods, I find that cohorts that were more likely to complete high school and obtain a college education as a result of the reform were more likely to have a high-socioeconomic (SES) occupation in their early 30s and 40s. Also, more educated cohorts, and in particular women, tend to marry later. Individuals with higher education tend to delay childbearing, migrate more not only in their early 30s, but also, to a greater degree, their early 40s - plausibly due to greater opportunities of migrating towards the more-educated.

Url: https://www.dropbox.com/s/whshdy20erjgd1i/Gaokao_Paper_Kexin Zhang.pdf?dl=0

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Authors: Zhang, Kexin

Periodical (Full): Economics of Education Review

Issue:

Volume: 97

Pages: 1-21

Data Collections: IPUMS International

Topics: Education

Countries: China