Using China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS) data between 1989 and 2011, this paper measures the returns to education in China based on the Mincer earnings function and reaches the following findings through an analy...Using China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS) data between 1989 and 2011, this paper measures the returns to education in China based on the Mincer earnings function and reaches the following findings through an analysis of the tendency of continuous variations over a long timeframe: returns to education are on the rise within the range of samples both under relative and absolute scenarios; returns to different levels of education are characterized by increasing marginal return; no significant difference exists between the returns to junior middle school and the returns to primary school education. Further discussions consider that the requirements of job positions for the overall competence of personnel, differentiated decline of corporate demand for recruitment, lack of an evaluation system in the labor market, information asymmetry in the job market, the development strategy adopted in a particular stage of history and the current slow progress of economic transition have jointly led to the underemployment of college graduates and the great enthusiasm of parents investing in higher education for their children. Conclusions of this paper not only have important practical relevance to the ongoing implementation of China's innovation-driven development strategy, but offer inspirations for the new round of educational reform as well.展开更多
Based on one of the most widely used datasets by foreign-based sociologists,this paper examines the rate of returns to education in rural China.Compared with the previous studies that showed rather low rates in rural ...Based on one of the most widely used datasets by foreign-based sociologists,this paper examines the rate of returns to education in rural China.Compared with the previous studies that showed rather low rates in rural areas throughout the 1980s,this study finds a considerably higher rate in 1996.A chief contributor is the rapid non-agricultural development,which creates enormous upward mobility opportunities,particularly for the more educated.Due to the uneven economic development nationwide,the rate of returns to education varies widely across regions.In areas with less developed non-agricultural sectors,it remains low.In contrast,where off-farm employment is widespread,it is much higher.In addition,the labor market is functioning to allocate the more educated to better-paid jobs,but has yet to produce higher returns to education in non-agricultural sectors than in the agricultural sector.However,changes may be occurring in coastal regions.展开更多
文摘Using China Health and Nutrition Survey(CHNS) data between 1989 and 2011, this paper measures the returns to education in China based on the Mincer earnings function and reaches the following findings through an analysis of the tendency of continuous variations over a long timeframe: returns to education are on the rise within the range of samples both under relative and absolute scenarios; returns to different levels of education are characterized by increasing marginal return; no significant difference exists between the returns to junior middle school and the returns to primary school education. Further discussions consider that the requirements of job positions for the overall competence of personnel, differentiated decline of corporate demand for recruitment, lack of an evaluation system in the labor market, information asymmetry in the job market, the development strategy adopted in a particular stage of history and the current slow progress of economic transition have jointly led to the underemployment of college graduates and the great enthusiasm of parents investing in higher education for their children. Conclusions of this paper not only have important practical relevance to the ongoing implementation of China's innovation-driven development strategy, but offer inspirations for the new round of educational reform as well.
文摘Based on one of the most widely used datasets by foreign-based sociologists,this paper examines the rate of returns to education in rural China.Compared with the previous studies that showed rather low rates in rural areas throughout the 1980s,this study finds a considerably higher rate in 1996.A chief contributor is the rapid non-agricultural development,which creates enormous upward mobility opportunities,particularly for the more educated.Due to the uneven economic development nationwide,the rate of returns to education varies widely across regions.In areas with less developed non-agricultural sectors,it remains low.In contrast,where off-farm employment is widespread,it is much higher.In addition,the labor market is functioning to allocate the more educated to better-paid jobs,but has yet to produce higher returns to education in non-agricultural sectors than in the agricultural sector.However,changes may be occurring in coastal regions.
