Returns to Higher Education Subjects and Tiers in China: Evidence from the China Family Panel Studies

Lili Kang, Fei Peng and Yu Zhu

No 12071, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Using the recent China Family Panel Studies, we identify the subjects studied by college (2–3 years) graduates and university (4–5 years) graduates. For the university graduates, we can further distinguish universities by the tier of selectivity (i.e., Key and Ordinary Universities). We take advantage of the rich information on the respondent's school cohort, hukou status at age 12, and the mother's age and education to estimate university applicants' simultaneous choice of subject and tier of prestige of higher education institutions (HEIs). Using the doubly robust Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment method to account for selection – on observables – into subjects and tiers, our treatment effect estimates suggest that pooled OLS and random-effect models substantially underestimate the effect of attending universities that are more prestigious for graduates of both genders in law, economics, and management (LEM). We also demonstrate that the recent massive expansion of the higher education sector resulted in reduced returns to HE for all graduates, except for graduates who studied LEM or Other non-STEM (sciences, technology, engineering and math/medicine) subjects at the most prestigious universities. The results are robust to treating subjects as predetermined for the selection into HEIs by tiers of prestige.

Keywords: returns to university tier and subjects; China; inverse probability weighted regression adjustment; higher education expansion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 I26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2019-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-edu and nep-tra
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published - published in: Studies in Higher Education, 2019, 46 (8), 1682–1695

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp12071.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Returns to higher education subjects and tiers in China - Evidence from the China Family Panel Studies (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12071

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().