Regional inequality in China's educational development: An urban-rural comparison

Abstract

In the past two decades, regional inequality in China's educational development, especially between urban and rural areas, has continued to narrow. An in-depth discussion of this phenomenon and the mechanisms behind it will not only help China build a high-quality educational system, but also draw lessons from Chinese practices to guide the reduction of global educational inequality. The comprehensive evaluation results show that China's rural EDL surpassed urban EDL in 2013; in 2003–2019, the urban/rural EDL increased from 0.29 to 0.22 to 0.50 and 0.54, respectively, and the urban-rural EII decreased from 1.31 to 0.92. Spatially, urban/rural EDL in the eastern and northeastern regions is higher than that in the central and western regions, the urban-rural EII in the eastern and northeastern regions is lower than that in the central and western regions. The CV and Theil index show that regional disparity in national urban/rural EDL has been narrowing, and regional inequality in urban-rural EII has also been declining; the decomposition of the Theil index indicates that these decreases in inequality are mainly from the reduction of the urban/rural educational development gap within the regions. The large-scale population migration driven by rapid industrialization and urbanization, and the adjustment of urban-rural and regional relationship promoted by the transformation of national policies such as regional coordinated development strategy and hukou system reform, are the main reasons for the evolution of regional inequality in China's urban and rural educational development.