Study of the Household Registration System and Academic Performance of Migrant Workers' Children

Abstract

China's household registration system is a dualistic system that links individual household registration to status, leading to constraints on residents' access to employment and education. It has resulted in inequality in the educational level performance of migrant workers' children. This paper attempts to study the academic performance of migrant workers' accompanying children in the city compared to urban household registration students using data from the China Family Tracking Survey (CFPS). The results show that students with rural household registration lag behind the academic performance of students with urban household registration. To avoid differences across cities, dummy variables were added and the results remained the same. Based on these findings, this paper makes recommendations such as reforming the household registration system and strengthening child protection policies.