Kiel Working Papers, Kiel Institute for World Economics
No 1692:
Regional Inequality of Higher Education in China and the Role of Unequal Economic Development
Frank Bickenbach and Wan-Hsin LIU
Abstract: Over the past decade the scale of higher education in
China has expanded substantially. Regional development policies attempted
to make use of the scale expansion as a tool to reduce the inequality of
higher education among different regions with different development levels
through providing the poor regions preferential treatment and support in
this regard. This paper analyses a provincial dataset (1997-2008), aiming
to provide comprehensive quantitative evidence for the development of
inequality of higher education opportunities across provinces in China over
the period of the scale expansion, taking different sizes and economic
development levels of provinces into account. Results show that the
regional inequality of higher education relative to provinces’ different
population sizes clearly decreased over the research period. Accompanying
the reduction in overall inequality across provinces, the inequality
between the poor and the rich regions actually increased over the same
period. However, the increase was realised in favour of the poor region.
The empirical results are consistent with the policy orientation of
reforming the higher education system and of promoting regional development
in China over the past decade
Keywords: higher education, regional inequality, China, Theil index; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: C43.; I23,; I28,; R53,; R58; (follow links to similar papers)
30 pages, April 2011
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