Word Count: 1943
## The Issue:
In the past decades, we saw China’s growth and advancement, in urbanization as well as growth in the economy. There are things we recognize to this rapid growth, such as education. With some city urbanizing faster than other, the gap in education resources has gotten wider. Differences between regions affect the resources that these regions receive, affecting the education resources that children receive. Growth in the economy helped China in advancement and development, but such rapid growth is hurting citizens in China. The wealth gap, regional gap, migration gap, and education gap are all enlarged due to such rapid growth in China.
Education inequality exists in China not only due to a lack of educational resources. The education gap is linked to regional inequality, rural places do not receive the same resources as the big urban cities. Many families would choose to migrate to urban cities for their children to receive the urban education resources. However, migration in China is heavily restricted by the hukou system. The hukou system is a registration, Hukou is a record where your family origin from, where your name is registered (4). Though it might just look like a little booklet with a page for each family member, it decides all your life chances (4). It determines where one can receive government benefits, such as access to education. This system makes migration within the country to be extremely difficult, where some would even claim it’s easier to migrate out of the country than within the country. This migration restriction mainly impacted families with lower income, as a wealthier family is finically stainable to send their kids to private institutions, or even out of the country. The cost for this is extremely high for many families, causing a difference in the education that children receive due to the wealth gap.
Education inequality does not just exist out of nowhere, many factors lead to this result. In China, the rapid growth of the economy is the factor that pulls people more apart, increasing inequality gaps. Though one country’s economy might have grown, this does not mean the entire has developed. The GDP is only the average of the entire country, this means that if one area in the country is higher than other areas, it fills in the difference of lower areas. Beijing has one of the highest GDP (3) but there are also places like Kunming, that have a much lower GDP. Beijing’s GDP is almost 5.5 times more than Kunming’s. With Beijing’s high number, it fills in the gap difference to “make up” for Kunming’s lower range number. This difference is what is bringing the average GDP of the country high. Inequality and gap between people in China are caused by the rapid economic growth in China
To fully understand the raise of education inequality in China, it’s best to view it from an individual perspective. The reason that is stopping an individual from receive education can vary by individual, as no individual is 100% alike. Limitation can be but not limited to, family responsibility, financial unfreedom, and opportunity differences. Descriptive inquiry is to seek the problem through an individual perspective. In this situation of education inequality, as stated that regional opportunities are created through the different resources that are available in each region.
Migration happens when people move from one place to another, in hope of seeking something such as better opportunities. Migration within China is not something simple, the hukou system is what is making migration to another country more difficult. The hukou system in China creates a label for urban and rural area people, people are not distinguished of where they are from based on where they live, but where their hukou is. Hukou is a record where your family origin from, where your name is registered (4). Though it might just look like a little booklet with a page for each family member, it decides all your life chances (Wu, X., 2011).
When a person is born, their parent’s hukou location determines their hukou location, the label they will have on them. Hukou in big cities often has more advantages than rural area’s hukou, such as more social benefits and access to education. Where your hukou is located decides what region of person you are, and where you can receive public education. For example, if a student’s family lives in Beijing, the student will need to meet the qualification to receive public education in Beijing(4). Unless a student attends a private institution, which is not something many households can afford. Even with migration, advanced education in big cities will always serve people of their region first. Who is not familiar with the hukou system might ask, can’t I just change my address? The answer to that is no, unlike the United States where you can just change your address to a different state when you move. To have a hukou in especially Beijing or Shanghai, you have to meet what is called qualifications. These qualifications include high education level, or high income (1). It’s extremely hard for ordinary people to meet these qualifications, making it hard to migrate from a rural region to an urban area within China (1).
An individual trying to receive better education is limited by factors such as the difficulty of migration in China and individual financial situation. If an individual hukou is in a city where education resources are not as advanced as urban cities, even with migration the individual still cannot receive the urban city resources. With the increase of private institutions that are available across China, gaining admission to these schools will not require hukou being based within the city. However, the cost of admission to these private institutions is considerably high for many families. There is no one reason why education inequality exists among individuals in China, limitation differ for each individual. The best to understand why education inequality exists would be best to view the problem from an individual perspective.
Demystifying the geography of income inequality in rural China: A transitional framework (2), perform an analysis of rural area inequality through the process of rejection of the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis used in this study is there is no process of grouping data into groups for the values being used. Grouping data is the process that some statists use to simplify and minimize the data collection process, this however will make data to become bias. The researcher uses inferential statistics to obtain the p-value and z-score. The p-value is the probability that the null hypothesis is true, which means if the p-value is smaller the null hypothesis should be rejected. If the p-value being returned is small, then the null hypothesis can be rejected. However, when the null hypothesis is rejected, the z-score value becomes extremely important. The z-score tells how far the value is from the mean. The z-score here tells how far off we are from average rural inequality. If the z-score is a positive value, and the observed value of the General G index is larger than the expected value.
The null hypothesis is rural inequality is not clustered into certain regions of China. To reject the null hypothesis would agree that rural inequality is all cluster in one part of China, rural inequality is spread out across the country. Having a low p-value would reject the null hypothesis, and a high z-score would indicate that rural inequality is all clustered into a region. This statistic method would help locate the location of where rural inequality exists within China. This process helps the authors to locate rather a certain region of China that has a high rural inequality compared to other regions. Rural inequality is a possible factor that can lead to education poverty/inequality. As the rural area has different access to recourses such as educational resources. Rural inequality can also lead to a wealth gap, as starting salaries in a rural area can lower than starting salaries in urban cities.
The conclusion made in Asian Development Review (5) are through the use of data gathered from two different surveys, 2009 RUMiC and 2010 CFPS. Though both surveys are trying to measure the education levels of a child from different regional groups in China. Both surveys gather their data through the score of an exam, however, the exam used were different.
RUMiC measures the students’ education level by asking for their latest final exam score. This makes the data to be highly biased, as exams difficulty level varies. Exam scores used were only the math and word portion of the exam, which can also put certain students at a disadvantage. Exam difficulty different among school, and grade level, all of which RUMiC fails to recognize. This method also puts children who are not good in math/language at a disadvantage, children that do not do well in math/language do not mean they are also doing badly in other subjects. The same concept applies to students that might be only doing well in math/language but not as well in other subjects. RUMiC data is good to use as it groups sample groups into rural residents, rural-urban migration, and urban residents. The data from this survey provides good information regarding these groups social and economic behaviors
The CFPS gather their data through the use of exam scores as well, however, CFPS provides this exam to the sample group. Each child (age 10-15) being surveyed was asked 24 arithmetic questions and 34-word questions. CFPS also measures the child’s math and language skill, but CFPS makes it fairer by the use of a unified exam. The CFPS also measures the childrens’ physical health, something RUMiC lacks in its study. CFPS would ask 6 questions regarding psychological questions on top of the 56 math/language questions.
Though the survey strategy used by CFPS is much better than RUMiC, CFPS does have a disadvantage to it. CFPS’s definition of the division of the surveyed group is different from RUMiC. RUMiC group their groups by where their hukou is located, while CFPS group it by where the children wad born and raised. CFPS definition would be valid in a country such as the United States but would fail in China. As mentioned, the hukou system is the determination of where one can receive education in China. Putting urban-born and raised children with a rural hukou in the urban resident group would not work. This child does not receive the same treatment as an urban resident with an urban hukou.
Both surveys provide good data in understanding rural residents, migration residents, and urban residents. Using one survey would not be enough to understand the difference in these groups. The use of both data allows for the other survey data to give information so that the other one lacks in its research.
The research so far has only focused on rural, rural to urban migration, and urban families, leaving the left-behind child. A left-behind child is a child who is left back in usually rural areas, many of which where the hukou is registered. These child-parent does not live with them, the parents would be working in different cities, rather it’s a rural or urban city. These children being left behind usually live with grandparents or other close family members. Many families have forced this separation due to unfreedom. Parent has no choice but to go somewhere to work to help support the family finically, or some are because the children hukou does not allow them to attend school in where the parent work. Further research can be done on how the strict hukou system in China has impacted individuals in China.
Chan, K. W. (2013). China: internal migration. In The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm124
Gao, J., Liu, Y., Chen, J., & Cai, Y. (2019). Demystifying the geography of income inequality in rural China: A transitional framework. Journal of Rural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.01.010
Textor, C. (2021). China: Cities with the highest gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019. https://www.statista.com/statistics/278939/chinese-cities-with-the-highest-gdp/
Wu, X. (2011). The Household Registration System and Rural-Urban Educational Inequality in Contemporary China. Chinese Sociological Review, 44(2), 31–51. https://doi.org/10.2753/csa2162-0555440202
Zhang, D., Li, X., & Xue, J. (2015). Education Inequality between Rural and Urban Areas of the People’s Republic of China, Migrants’ Children Education, and Some Implications. Asian Development Review, 32(1), 196–224. https://doi.org/10.1162/adev_a_00042