A Study of Women's Access to Higher Education in Rural and Urban China

Abstract

Based on a survey of student enrollment at fifty colleges and universities of varying types in ten provinces and urban districts, including Shaanxi, Fujian, Hunan, and Shanghai, we analyzed the overall disparity in urban and rural women college students' access to education, as well as the urban-rural disparity across different types of institutions. We pose that, although the overall urban-rural disparity in Chinese women's access to higher education is fairly wide and although an even wider gap emerges across every category of private colleges and universities, in public colleges and universities the urban-rural disparity in women's access to higher education is fairly negligent. In describing the degree of deviation, we use the data from our survey to further analyze the socioeconomic status of the women participants in the survey and explore the various causes that led to this urban-rural disparity.