高校扩招与中国代际收入流动

Higher Education Expansion and China's Intergenerational Income Mobility

基于现有经济学和社会学理论,本研究从理论上探讨高校扩招通过家庭教育投资决策、学校教育积累过程以及劳动力市场教育回报三条传递路径对代际收入流动的作用机理。研究发现,理论上很难判断高校扩招是否能够增加代际收入流动性,降低机会不平等。利用中国家庭追踪调查数据,本研究将高校扩招作为自然实验,通过构建双重差分计量模型,实证考察高校扩招的代际收入传递效应。研究发现,高校扩招的综合收入弹性效应为正,这意味着高校扩招使收入流动性降低,增加了代际收入流动的不平等。研究还发现,高校扩招对代际收入流动的阻碍作用主要通过女性子代实现。我们认为高收入和高社会阶层家庭更有能力俘获高校扩招带来的好处,尽管低收入家庭因经济约束下降和高校扩招机会上升更愿意为子代提供高等教育的机会,但其子代(尤其是女性)由于面临劳动力市场的更强竞争,出现收入和收入流动双下降的情况。

By using China Family Panel Studies( CFPS) and difference-in-difference( DID)econometric model, this study treats higher education expansion as a natural experiment and examines its transmission effect on intergenerational income mobility. This study finds that the comprehensive effect of higher education expansion on income elasticity is positive,meaning that the higher education expansion will lower down intergenerational income mobility and increase inequality. This study also finds that the higher education expansion hinders intergenerational mobility mainly through the female children. We argue that families with high income and high social class have better abilities to capture the benefits from higher education expansion.