Research On The Effect Of Higher Education Enrollment Expansion On Chinese Residents’ Income Gap

Since reforming and opening,our country economy grows rapidly.However,with some problems gradually emerging,the income gap is still large,which is the topic of social concern.Academic circles have conducted in-depth research on the income gap,and one of the views is that education is an important factor affecting the income gap.According to human capital theory,higher level education can improve people’s knowledge and skills,improve people’s life,improve labor productivity,and thus increase people’s economic income.Thus,this paper puts forward the research question,namely how the impact of higher education expansion on our residents’ income gap.To realize the purpose of this research,starting from the policy of university expansion implemented in 1999,the author studies the whole income gap and selects the macro-data of university expansion and residents’ income gap during 1999-2020,and analyzes the effect of higher education expansion on residents’ income gap.The Kuznets regression model is used to empirically test the impact of higher education enrollment expansion on residents’ income gap,and the co-integration test and Granger causality test are further carried out to verify whether there is a long-term equilibrium relationship and causality between them.Secondly,panel data of 9 countries from 2011 to 2016 are selected to further discuss the impact of higher education enrollment expansion on income gap,in order to obtain inspiration and reference from international experience.The findings are as follows:First,there is an inverted U curve between the expansion of university enrollment and the income gap of Chinese residents.With the expansion of the scale of higher education,the income gap of Chinese residents is enlarged first,after certain vertex,this gap will narrow.Second,there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between the expansion of college enrollment and the residents’ income gap,and through the Granger causality test,the result shows that the expansion of higher education has a causality relationship for our residents’ income gap.The change of income gap of Chinese residents can be predicted before the expansion of higher education.Thirdly,through transnational data discussion,our higher education development level compared with the developed countries still there is a certain gap,is necessary to continue to develop higher education;Secondly,in the selected international samples,expanding the scale of higher education has a significant effect on narrowing the income gap.Fourthly,after the expansion of higher education enrollment,the imbalance of higher education labor resources will have an impact on the income gap between urban and rural areas,regions and different industries.