An Analysis of the Effect of ''Send-down Movement'' Experience on Gender Perception

Abstract

In 1960s and 1970s, roughly 18 million urban youths in China were sent to rural areas under the command of government to bear heavy agricultural work. This paper adopts discontinuity in policy to conduct a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) to examine how send-down experience in the youth affects long-term gender perception. The result shows that being sent-down in the youth on average shifts the score of gender perception several decades later towards the more progressive direction by 1-1.4 standard deviations. This implies that, even in rural areas where agriculture is dominant and people bear heavy manual work, gender equality can be achieved by a fair institution.