教育的代际流动:来自中国学制改革的证据

Intergenerational Mobility of Education:Evidences from schooling reform in China

近年来,中国的市场经济体制逐渐建立并完善起来,然而与此同时,各社会阶层间的差距也在日渐扩大。这使得中国的政府部门、学术研究者、普通民众都更为关心社会公平性和代际流动水平。教育是人力资本投资的基本形式,因此教育的代际流动水平将对收入等方面的代际流动水平有着重要的影响,进而关系到社会公平性。那么,中国的教育代际流动水平如何?父母和子女的教育程度之间是否存在因果效应?对2005年中国1%人口抽样调查数据的实证研究发现:1978至1982年的延长中小学年限的学制改革,使得适龄人口的平均教育年限增加了;但改革有个意料之外的影响——适龄人口上过初中的比例有所下降,其中女性下降的比男性多,因而女性平均教育年限增加的比男性少。进一步,针对教育可能与遗传能力等遗漏变量相关的内生性问题,以此学制改革作为父母教育年限的工具变量的2SLS估计结果表明:控制其他条件不变时,父母的教育年限分别每增加1年,子女的教育年限分别相应地增加0.36年、0.59年,可见母亲的教育年限的影响较大。上述结果表明,基础教育会显著地影响底层人群,政府应该通过教育改革促进代际流动水平乃至社会公平性,例如制定并贯彻延长义务教育年限、增加公共教育投入、资助贫困家庭子女就学等政策。

During the schooling reform in different provinces of the China's Mainland from 1978 to 1982,years of schooling in primary and middle schools increased.However,one unintended effect of the reform is that the number of the people attending middle school declined;the number of female attending middle school declined even more than that of male;and the average years of female＇s education increased less than that of male.This paper takes the schooling reform as an instrument for observing children＇s education with that of their parents.2SLS estimates illustrate that one year＇s increase in father＇s or mother＇s years of education is associated with 0.36 and 0.59year＇s child＇s increase in education respectively,which suggests that the maternal effect is stronger than the paternal effect.