Reassessing Disparity in Access to Higher Education in Contemporary China

Abstract

In this commentary on the research note by Wang Xiaobing, Chengfang Liu, Linxiu Zhang, Yaojiang Shi and Scott Rozelle, “College is a rich, Han, urban, male club: research notes from a census survey of four tier one colleges in China,” I address several caveats in using the relative disparity index in assessing the extent of inequality in access to higher education. Based on these discussions, I point out the potential limitations existing in the empirical study of Wang and colleagues, and reassess the extent of disparity in college education opportunities in contemporary China using data from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey. Although the descriptive patterns consolidate the study of Wang and colleagues, only household registration status is significantly associated with the likelihood of attending college. These findings indicate that disparities per gender, economic status, and ethnicity based on a limited number of colleges are likely to be subject to sampling errors. Finally, no interaction effects between socio-demographic factors are detected. I offer some reflections on the disproportionality approach in the research of education inequality.

摘要

在这篇评价王晓兵教授及其同事研究纪要的论文中, 我们讨论了利用相对不平等指数分析高等教育不平等问题时所需要注意的几个问题。基于这些讨论, 我们指出了王晓兵教授等人研究中所存在的潜在不足, 并利用中国综合社会调查 2010 年的数据对当代中国高等教育机会公平问题进行了再评估。我们的描述性模式虽然基本支持王教授等人的结论, 但是只有户口状况与接受大学教育的机会呈现显著性相关关系。这些发现表明, 基于有限大学样本所展示出的基于性别、经济地位以及民族因素的教育机会不平等有可能受到抽样误差的影响。最后, 社会人口因素之间的交互效应也没有得到数据支持。在本文中, 我们也对教育不平等研究中比例失调路径进行了反思。