Market Returns to Educational Expansion in Hong Kong

• In Event: 33.078 - Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 33.078-12 - Standardization Across the World: Discursive Construction of Educational Pathways

Abstract

Hong Kong has undergone massive educational expansion during the 1970s and 1990s, including compulsory education reforms and higher education expansion. We study the wage effects of this expansion using Hong Kong Census data. We find that the expansion did not significantly affect men’s educational attainment and earnings. However, women’s educational attainment was improved, which resulted in wage increases as well. Further, treating the expansion as an exogenous increase in educational attainment, we obtain two-stage least squares estimates of returns to schooling of about 27% for women, which is 10 percentage points higher than the OLS estimates. The impact shed light on the importance of improved educational equality on long-term economic equality for women.

Authors

• Maggie S.Y. Fok, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Dongshu Ou, Chinese University of Hong Kong