School Dropouts and Conditional Cash Transfers: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Rural China's Junior High Schools

Di Mo, Hongmei Yi (), Linxiu Zhang, Renfu Luo, Scott Rozelle and Carl Brinton

LICOS Discussion Papers from LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven

Abstract: Recent anecdotal reports suggest that dropout rates may be higher and actually increasing over time in poor rural areas. There are many reasons not to be surprised that there is a dropout problem, given the fact that China has a high level of poverty among the rural population, a highly competitive education system and rapidly increasing wages for unskilled workers. The overall goal of this study is to examine if there is a dropout problem in rural China and to explore the effectiveness that a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program could have on dropouts (and mechanism by which the CCT might affect drop outs). To meet this objective, we conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a CCT using a sample of 300 junior high school students in a nationally-designated poor county in Northwest China. Using our data, we found that the annual dropout rate in the study county was high, about 7.0%. We find, however, that a CCT program reduces drop outs by 60%; the dropout rate is 13.3% in the control group and 5.3 % in the treatment group. The program is most effective in the case of girls, younger students and the poorest performing students.

Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-lab, nep-tra and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Journal Article: School Dropouts and Conditional Cash Transfers: Evidence from a Randomised Controlled Trial in Rural China's Junior High Schools (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lic:licosd:28311

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