Family Background, Gender and Educational Attainment in Urban China

Abstract

Substantial gender imbalances in Chinese higher education and in the urban occupational structure are widely recognized.1 Women comprise only about one–third of students in colleges and universities, and they tend to be concentrated in particular types of institutions, such as teacher training colleges, and departments such as humanities, while men predominate in the scientific and engineering fields that have served as the primary avenues for upward occupational and political mobility. In the urban workforce, men are overrepresented in state–run factories and in positions of authority and expertise generally, while women are overrepresented in the collective sector, medium and light industry, and in the lower clerical and service sectors. These circumstances are the result of pervasive societal sorting processes which begin much earlier in life than sitting for the college entrance exams or entering the labour force, and which channel girls and boys towards different if partially overlapping futures. The research we report here on the determinants of educational attainment at the senior high school level helps to shed light on processes of gender differentiation and stratification in urban China.