Children Left Behind in China : The Role of School Fees
The barriers faced by Chinese rural-urban migrants to access social services, particularly education, in host cities could help explain why the majority of migrants choose to leave their children behind. This paper proposes a theoretical framework...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2016
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/661351478530302917/Children-left-behind-in-China-the-role-of-school-fees http://hdl.handle.net/10986/25681 |
| Summary: | The barriers faced by Chinese
rural-urban migrants to access social services, particularly
education, in host cities could help explain why the
majority of migrants choose to leave their children behind.
This paper proposes a theoretical framework that allows for
an explicit discussion of the link between school fees and
the decision of migrant parents to bring their children to
the city. The analysis instruments the endogenous school
fees with unexpected shocks to the city's public
education spending, and empirically tests the theoretical
predictions. The findings suggest that higher fees deter
migrant workers from bringing their children, 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 are likely to have stronger
impacts during an economic crisis. These findings hold for
different model specifications and robustness checks. |
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