Gender inequality of educational resource allocation within household in China — the effects of resource-limitation and resource-dilution Yixiao LIU Institute for Population and Development Studies School of Public Policy and Administration Xi’an Jiaotong University Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, 710049, China liuyixiao900522@163.com Quanbao JIANG Institute for Population and Development Studies School of Public Policy and Administration Xi’an Jiaotong University Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, 710049, China recluse_jqb@126.com Introduction Gender inequality in education has been viewed as a key indicator of gender inequality. In developing countries, girls’ access to schooling has long been a focus of scholars and policy makers. More than three decades of economic reforms along with the implementation of the one-child policy, the nine-year mandatory education policy have brought great improvements in the quality of life for women and girls in China. Many previous studies show that gender difference in education has been declining in China, and even the educational level of female begin to exceed that of male (Hannum and Xie,1994; Li,2010; Ye and Wu,2011). It has been a consensus among most scholars that the education of female in China is improving and recently more scholars begin to research on the relations between the gender difference in education and other social stratifications.
Some studies revealed that whether parents privilege sons over daughters in educational resource provision is a complicated question. Educational differences between girls and boys have become much more subtle in recent years (Zhang et al., 2007). For example, the study of Li(2009; 2010)shows that gender inequality in education is closely affected by the location of a family, rural or urban, and by the socioeconomic status (SES) of the family. The more remote and the poorer a family is, the greater gender difference in education. Ye and Wu (2011) found that the number of siblings also affects the gender inequality. The more children a family raises, the more likely a female is less advantageous than a male in education. The study of Wu (2012) indicates that the type of gender difference in education varies among social groups. More specifically, the inequality is more severe in families which located in a poorer area, acquire a lower SES and have more children. While in families with higher SES, the gender gap tends to be less and women even have more opportunities in getting education than men. Above all, gender difference in education varies substantially among different social classes. There are three dimensions related to the measurement of educational inequality: educational opportunity, educational process and educational result(Liang, 2012).However, the above studies, no matter on the changes and trends of gender difference in education in China or on the interactions between gender and other social stratifications in education, all focus on individual educational result (educational attainment). There are some specific indicators measuring educational result. For example, attending a college or not (Li, 2010), years of schooling (Ye and Wu, 2011; Wu, 2012), enrollment rates in a certain phase (Connelly and Zheng, 2003) or completion or graduation rates (Connelly and Zheng, 2003). Some earlier studies focused on the educational opportunity, such as illiteracy rates and the rates of dropping-out. However, few of previous studies discussing the relations between the gender inequality and other social dimensions focused on the educational process. The issue of inequality in educational process covers two aspects: one is inequality in school resource provision, and the other is inequality in family resource provision. In contemporary China, the distribution of educational resources is mainly completed in families. Liu (2004) has found that basic schooling is totally a private matter and decisions about it are totally the family’s private business despite of the national Law on the 9-year Compulsory Education. In recent years, researches on gender inequality in education have attracted our attention from overall economic development to individual families (Ye and Wu, 2011). Due to the critical role that family plays in children’s educational process, this study will focus on family educational resource provision. Meanwhile, in the process of resource allocation, household will balance efficiency and equity issues to determine the optimal distribution of educational resources (Behrman, Pollak, and Taubman 1982 ; Becker 1991); Parish and Willis (1993) pointed out that the higher the parents’ income was or the less the siblings are, the smaller the gender gap is. Therefore, when studying gender difference in educational resource allocation within families, considering family resources in this process is necessary. For the family
resources, apart from the household economic conditions, consideration should also be given to the number of children in the families due to resource dilution. And in the context of China, Hukou ( household registration dividing Chinese people into urban and rural groups) is a key factor in deciding a family’s welfare. The economic development, the cultural circumstances, the educational infrastructure in rural areas is in a more disadvantaged position than urban areas. Therefore, studies in this field should also consider the type of Hukou of families. Overall, the economic conditions and Hukou represent the situation of resource-limitation of the family and the number of children stands for the situation of resource-dilution. Based on these contexts, the current study uses 2013-2014 baseline survey data of China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) to examine the gender difference of educational resource allocation within household when the family resources are different ( families in different social stratifications). Literature Review Research on gender inequality in educational attainment Classic theories for studying resource provision within families come from the human capital model of Becker (1964; 1991) and the resource dilution explanation of Blake (1981). The key point of these two theories is that children’s education is the outcome of decision-making of individual families which try to reach a balance between efficiency and equity while distributing resources. Therefore, both the economic constraints and the dilution of family resources among siblings can have impact on children’s education. Based on this, many scholars enriched the theory in China’s context. For example, Parish and Willis (1992) found that the presence of a brother reduced siblings’ education. Chu, Xie and Yu (2007) developed the theory in China’s special patriarchal society. In empirical studies in Taiwan, they found that the increase of the number of siblings had greater impact on girls than on boys and even found that having a sister who is far older than himself will bring positive influence on a boy’s education. The above classical studies all recruited educational attainment as dependent variable. They used this indicator to reflect the provision and distribution of education resources within families. According to the human capital theories, the number of years staying in school reveals the amount of educational resources one enjoys (Becker, 1964). Moreover, educational attainment is more applicable in studies and as the direct outcome of educating it draws more attention from people. Therefore, in studying the household educational resource provision, it is necessary to review previous studies on educational attainment. Li (2010) found that females from low SES-background families were notably less likely to receive higher education than others. According to the study of Ye and Wu (2011), the more siblings a female had, the less education she was prone to receive, especially when she had brothers. Lee’s study (2011) found that there was no gender difference in education in single-child families, but it still existed in families with
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