教育对缓解多维相对贫困的影响——基于高校扩招自然实验的证据

Reducing Multidimensional and Relative Poverty Through China’s College Expansion:A Natural Experiment

在以多维性为贫困重要属性的后脱贫时代,高等教育减贫相较于其他扶贫方式具有显著优势,因此有必要对高等教育减贫效果进行评估。本文基于2018年中国家庭追踪调查数据,利用各省扩招政策强度差异和样本出生队列信息构造双重差分模型,考察高校扩招对个体陷入多维相对贫困概率的影响。研究发现,高等教育减贫的效果显著,高校扩招后直接受到政策影响的队列陷入多维相对贫困的概率降低17.6%。在改变关键变量度量方式后,研究结果显示高等教育减贫效果依然稳健。高校扩招过程中为个体提供的高等教育机会提高了个体的非认知能力、非农就业的概率和社会资本,从而降低个体陷入多维相对贫困的概率。但是,高校扩招的减贫效应在不同群体之间存在差异,高校扩招对非农村人口、女性、父辈教育水平高的人群的减贫效应更大。因此,需更加注重不同群体在获得高质量高等教育方面的公平,以更好地发挥高等教育的减贫效应。

In current“post-poverty alleviation”era in China,our focus has shifted from eradicating absolute poverty to reducing multidimensional and relative poverty.To explore how effective China’s college expansion turn out to be in reducing multidimensional and relative poverty,this research,using the data from China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)(2018),constructed a difference-in-differences(DiD)model to analyze the impact of college expansion with various degrees of intensity across provinces on a sample birth cohort.It has been found that among the cohorts directly affected by college expansion,the multidimensional and relative poverty rate has been reduced by 17.6%.Even after changing the metrics for measuring explanatory variables,the model still produced remarkable results.College expansion helps to reduce poverty,because,as shown by our model,higher education improves an individual’s non-cognitive skills and increases their social capital as well as employability in non-agricultural sector.However,college expansion turns out to be more effective in reducing poverty among female and non-farming cohorts raised by better-educated parents.Therefore,we need to pay more attention to equity in higher education to ensure equal success for all students.Only in that way can we maximize the role of higher education in poverty reduction.