From rural schools to city factories: Assessing the quality of Chinese rural schools

Author/s
Eric A. Hanushek
Le Kang
Xueying Li
Lei Zhang
Published Date
January 21, 2026
Publication
Vox China

Rural school quality is low and varies significantly across provinces. We estimate provincial variations in school quality from in the labor market returns to years of schooling of interprovincial rural migrants educated in different home provinces but working in the same urban labor market. School quality is higher and provincial variation is lower for younger cohorts, indicating at least partial effectiveness of recent policies aimed at improving rural school quality across provinces.