The Measurement and Decomposition Analysis of Inequality of Opportunity in China’s Educational Outcomes

Abstract This paper uses China’s Census data from 1982 to 2005 to measure and decompose the degree of inequality in educational opportunity (IOE). We apply the parameter estimation method from an ex-ante perspective and the Shapley value decomposition method to calculate the contribution of “circumstances” factors to inequality of opportunity in educational outcomes. Our results indicate that China’s educational inequality showed a significant downward trend during the study period, which can be attributed to a notable reduction in the inequality of educational opportunity. We also observe considerable heterogeneity in China’s educational opportunity inequality across gender, region, and birth cohort subsamples. The main contributors to the inequality of opportunity for Chinese individuals concerning their educational outcomes are the individual’s age, the parents’ education in the family, and the hukou system.