The Impact Of Public Compulsory Education Expenditure On Intergenerational Mobility Of Human Capital

Ensuring education equity is the only way to achieve common prosperity in China at this stage.Nevertheless,the fairness of human capital accumulation has not been effectively solved,and the intergenerational mobility on human capital is relatively weak,which is an important factor leading to the occurrence of educational inequity.As China’s basic public education,the primary significance of the reform and development of compulsory education is to achieve high-quality fairness and high fair quality of compulsory education.Generally,when students are younger and in the early stage of education,the characteristics of their family economic and school educational will be more obvious.When the family background becomes an unchangeable factor,the special significance of compulsory education for the "disadvantaged group" students will be highlighted.This paper makes an empirical analysis of the impact of public compulsory education expenditure on intergenerational mobility of human capital of Chinese residents by using the data of the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)from 2010 to2020 and the China Statistical Yearbook of Education Expenditure from 1996 to 2014.First of all,the mobility of human capital in China presents the following characteristics: First,there is a high probability that the children whose highest education level is middle school or high school will be in the same education level as their parents,and there is a strong stickiness between the intergenerational mobility on human capital.Second,the intergenerational mobility on human capital has a clear boundary.The intergenerational mobility on those uneducated parents,there is a high probability that their children’s highest education level is primary school or middle school,and the intergenerational mobility on the parents whose highest education level in middle school or high school,their children with highest education level in middle school or senior high school is also strong.However,for the parents who have not attended school or whose highest education level is in primary or middle schools,the probability of their children’s highest education level being college or above is low,that is,the upward intergenerational mobility on human capital among people with low education level is weak.The highest education level of the parents is high school,college or above,and the probability that their children have not attended school is low,that is,the downward intergenerational mobility on human capital among highly educated groups is weak.Third,the intergenerational elasticity of human capital in China,when the children were born between 1988 and 1998,ranges from 0.4335 to0.1149.The overall trend is downward.Secondly,the empirical results of the impact of public compulsory education expenditure on intergenerational mobility of human capital show that: first,the increase of public education expenditure in the compulsory education stage can significantly enhance intergenerational mobility on human capital.The result remains unchanged after the robustness test of adding the interaction item of fixed effect between province and children’s birth year or replacing the measurement standard of human capital.Second,the impact of public compulsory education expenditure on intergenerational mobility of human capital has obvious heterogeneity.The effect of public education expenditure in primary school on promoting intergenerational mobility of human capital is stronger than that in middle school.Compared with rural groups,non-agricultural registered permanent residence groups,highly educated parents and central regions,the intergenerational mobility of human capital in urban groups,agricultural registered permanent residence groups,low educated parents and eastern and western regions is weak.For these groups with strong intergenerational stickiness of human capital,the public compulsory education expenditure has a more significant effect on promoting intergenerational mobility of human capital.Finally,this paper conducts verifiable criterion to verify the substitution effect of public education expenditure in the budget of compulsory education stage on private education expenditure,and finds that the substitution effect of public education expenditure on private education expenditure in primary school stage is significant,while there is no substitution effect in middle school stage.This paper examines public education expenditure on the level of human capital in different groups by grouping parents at different levels of education,in urban and rural areas,and in different registered residence.It proves that public education expenditure at the compulsory education stage helps to improve the level of human capital of "disadvantaged groups",and verifies the role of public education expenditure at the compulsory education stage in promoting education equity.The research conclusion of this paper shows that the intergenerational mobility on human capital of Chinese residents is increasing year by year,but some problems of the intergenerational mobility on human capital in China are still serious,and there are obvious boundaries for intergenerational mobility on human capital.In order to further improve the intergenerational mobility on human capital,the following policy recommendations are put forward: First,adhere to the improvement of the public education system,and rationally allocate educational resources.Second,increase the level of public education investment in China and weaken the intergenerational endowment difference.