The Impact Of Education On China’s Intergenerational Income Mobility

Intergenerational income mobility is an important part of social equity,and education has a significant impact on intergenerational income mobility.Intergenerational income mobility is often used to measure social fairness.The higher the fluidity of social intergenerational income,the more opportunities for people in a disadvantaged position at the beginning of life to change their destiny,and the whole society is more vibrant and stable.On the contrary,too small intergenerational income mobility will aggravate the solidification of social classes,cause an imbalanced social structure,and ultimately affect the vitality of social and economic development.Education,a key factor affecting the mobility of intergenerational income,is an effective way to promote intergenerational mobility in peacetime.Therefore,measuring the intergenerational income mobility of a society and how education can improve it are issues worth studying.From the perspective of the impact of education on intergenerational income mobility,this article first reviews the literature on existing theories and mechanisms of intergenerational income mobility,and then analyzes the impact education on intergenerational income mobility and possible mechanism in theory.Next,in the empirical analysis section,I measured the overall intergenerational income mobility in China by combining CFPS data and analyzed the heterogeneity of people in different regions and different income levels.Finally,based on the idea of intermediary variables,the net effect of education on intergenerational income mobility was calculated,and the possible mechanism was verified.Based on the above studies,this thesis draws the following conclusions.First,the overall intergenerational income mobility in China is still relatively suitable,but there are large differences in different regions and populations.The intergenerational income mobility in cities is greater than that in rural areas,and the intergenerational income mobility in developed regions is higher than in non-developed regions.Among the groups,the intergenerational income mobility of the people at both ends of the income distribution is low,while that of the middle income groups is higher.Secondly,education does improve intergenerational income mobility.In general,education contributes 22.57% to intergenerational income mobility,which are 20.61% and 26.64%in rural and urban areas,respectively.Third,education ultimately affect intergenerational income mobility through the accumulation of human capital in the early stage and the improvement of intergenerational professional status in the later stage.Education helps the offspring of high-income people to replicate the status of their parents,which reduces intergenerational mobility;but for low-and middle-income people,it can improve the unfavorable socioeconomic status at the initial stage and improve intergenerational mobility.