| The Chinese government's efforts to achieve universal basic education have been hampered by non-participation among rural children. It is crucial to identify the factors that influence children's school enrollment in rural areas in order to more effectively target resources.;Drawing upon the Human Capital theory in terms of household schooling investment and empirical studies from other countries, I investigate the determinants of basic education enrollment in rural China. I focus particularly on the role of household income in the process of household decision-making about children's schooling. This is done by analyzing micro data for a sample of 15,274 school-age children. The estimation technique is random-effects probit analysis which accounts for both the dichotomous nature of the outcome variable and the clustering of individuals at the household level. The quantitative data analysis is supplemented by interviews with parents.;The results show that household income is positively associated with children's school enrollment, though the effect is modest. In addition, boys are more likely to be in school than girls; both the youngest and the oldest age cohorts in the 7-15 year age group are less likely to be in school than those in the middle; more siblings also mean a reduced chance of being enrolled in school. An important predictor of children's school enrollment is community wealth, a proxy for the quantity and quality of local school provision. |
