Children Left Behind in China: The Role of School Fees

IZA Journal of Development and Migration, 2020

46 Pages Posted: 18 Feb 2020

See all articles by Hai-Anh Dang

Hai-Anh Dang

World Bank - Development Data Group (DECDG); IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Indiana University Bloomington - School of Public & Environmental Affairs (SPEA); Global Labor Organization (GLO); Vietnam National University Ha Noi

Yang Huang

World Bank

Harris Selod

National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA); National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) - Center for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST); The World Bank; Paris School of Economics (PSE); World Bank - Development Research Group (DECRG)

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Date Written: January 23, 2020

Abstract

The barriers faced by Chinese rural-urban migrants to access social services, particularly education, in host cities could help explain why the majority of them choose to leave their children behind. We identify the causal impacts of school fees by instrumenting for it with unexpected shocks to the city’s public education spending. Our findings suggest that higher fees deter migrant workers from bringing their children with them, especially their daughters, reduce the number of children they bring, and increase educational remittances to rural areas for the children left behind. Increases in school fees most affect vulnerable migrant workers, and could have stronger impacts during an economic crisis. These findings hold for different model specifications and robustness checks.

Keywords: child migration, school fees, public education spending, urbanization, China

JEL Classification: I22, J61, O15

Suggested Citation

Dang, Hai-Anh H. and Huang, Yang and Selod, Harris, Children Left Behind in China: The Role of School Fees (January 23, 2020). IZA Journal of Development and Migration, 2020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3524143

Hai-Anh H. Dang (Contact Author)

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