Youth Education and Learning in Twenty-First Century China: Disentangling the Impacts of Migration, Residence, and Hukou

Abstract

Rural-to-urban migration within China is one of the important drivers of transformation in economic and social conditions in the 21st century. This study uses data a new nationally based sample, the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), to capture the multidimensionality of migration, household registration, and current residence and examines school pacing, verbal and math achievement among adolescents aged 10 to 15. The study finds little evidence of significant migration effects after controlling for family structure, SES and county characteristics, except for one select group— urban ‘left behind’—who are the most advantaged in both math and language achievement. Girls who are co-resident with siblings demonstrate an advantage compared to boys who are co-resident with siblings on language skill while it is singleton girls that demonstrate a disadvantage compared to singleton boys on math skills. Both girls and boys co-resident with siblings perform lower overall than singleton boys on mathematics achievement. In modern China male children in singleton families’ exhibit the gendered mathematics achievement test advantage well recognized in the international literature, whereas male children co-resident with siblings more closely resemble girls.