Reduce or Reproduce: The Impact of Government Engagement on Preschool Education Inequality

• In Event: Examining China's Contemporary Education Policies and Practices

Abstract

Reduce or Reproduce are two dimensions of the impact of education on inequality. Pre-school education provides better returns to the poor and governments around the world are expanding their investment in pre-school education. Using China's policy of promoting preschool education as an example, this paper finds that the expansion of government investment in preschool education reduces household investment in education inside kindergarten but increases household investment in education outside of kindergarten, thereby increasing total household spending on preschool education, an effect that increases with household socioeconomic conditions. This means that government involvement, while increasing the gross enrolment rate of school-age children, does not actually reduce the reality of educational inequity, but rather becomes a tool of social reproduction.

Authors

• Zhuorui Deng, Beijing Normal University
  Presenting Author

• zhongjiu Zhang
  Presenting Author