An analysis of education inequality in China

• This paper shows that the education expansion policy in last decades has contributed to a sharp decrease in education inequality and an improvement of average years of schooling in China.
• The urban–rural division contributes to education inequality most, followed in decreasing significance by social stratification division, age, gender disparity and regional gaps.
• With the combination of system discrimination and power, a relatively dominant class is enjoying greater educational opportunities and good quality educational resources in China.

This article analyzes both the current situation regarding education inequality in China, and its formation mechanisms. Policies promoting education have lead to remarkable progress in educational attainment, and also effectively decreased educational inequality. However, substantial inequalities in educational attainment remain, even though sustainable progress has been realized. Decomposition results using the Gini coefficient and Shapley value approach based on regression analysis indicate that the greatest contributing factors to educational inequality involve the urban–rural and social stratification divisions. Moreover, the household register system which divides city and country, as well as increasing income inequality is deepening institutional barriers and stratum differentiation. Though gender and regional gaps have been reduced significantly, the population residing in economically disadvantaged areas, especially females, still warrants social concern. In addition, age related decomposition results indicate that increasing educational attainment for the young plays a key role in reducing education inequality. At last, we argue that more educational investment should be allocated to disadvantaged groups and lower income groups; especially eliminating some institutional barriers such as the hukou system, unequal distribution of good quality educational resources, and so on.