The effects of tuition reforms on school enrollment in rural China

•Effects of three reforms in China on enrollment of school aged children.•Variation in timing is used to identify the policy effects.•The two-waivers-one-subsidy improved girls’ enrollment by 6.6 percentage points.•Subsequent tuition wavier increased enrollment for the rest by approximately 8 percentage points.•Increase can primarily be attributed to those whose families are from treatment counties with lower household income than otherwise similar girls.

We estimate the effects of three sequential reforms undertaken between 2000 and 2006 on school enrollment for poor, rural families in China. Using difference-in-difference approaches and sample children from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 2000, 2004, and 2006 waves, we find that tuition control has had a minimal effect on primary and junior high school enrollment. Furthermore, a policy that includes tuition waivers, free textbooks, and living expense subsidies starting from 2003 had a significantly positive effect on school enrollment of rural girls, but not rural boys. This gender differential effect results from the improvement in the enrollment of girls who live in poor households. Finally, the provision for tuition waive for all rural children since 2006, although having no statistically significant effect on the overall enrollment, indeed improved the enrollment of children who were less likely to have enjoyed two-waiver-one-subsidy.