Primary school availability and middle school education in rural China

• We examine the impact of school accessibility on children's educational attainment.
• We control both community fixed-effects and time effects in our analysis.
• Having a local primary school has a significant positive effect on girls' education.
• We find the non-randomness of school allocation biases the estimate towards zero.
• Having a local primary school has no significant effect on boys' education.

To improve primary school accessibility, the Chinese government built many primary schools in rural areas during the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the same time, it also closed many schools due to the declining number of school-age children. These changes provide us with a unique opportunity to examine the impact of primary school availability on children's educational attainment. Using data extracted from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that improved primary school availability has a significant positive effect on girls' middle school attainment, but has no significant impact on boys' education.