Students in rural China are dropping out of secondary school at troubling rates. While there is considerable quantitative research on this issue, no systematic effort has been made to assess the deeper reasons behind student decision making through a mixed-methods approach. This article seeks to explore the prevalence, correlates and potential reasons for rural dropout throughout the secondary education process. It brings together results from eight large-scale survey studies covering 24,931 rural secondary students across four provinces, as well as analysis of extensive interviews with 52 students from these same study sites. The results show that the cumulative dropout rate across all windows of secondary education may be as high as 63 per cent. Dropping out is significantly correlated with low academic performance, high opportunity cost, low socioeconomic status and poor mental health. A model is developed to suggest that rural dropout is primarily driven by two mechanisms: rational cost-benefit analysis or impulsive, stress-induced decision making. 

China’s rapid development and urbanization have induced large numbers of rural residents to migrate from their homes to urban areas in search of better job opportunities. Parents typically leave their children behind with a caregiver, creating a new, potentially vulnerable subpopulation of left-behind children in rural areas. A growing number of policies and nongovernmental organization efforts target these children. The primary objective of this study was to examine whether left-behind children are really the most vulnerable and in need of special programs. Pulling data from a comprehensive data set covering 141,000 children in ten provinces (from twenty-seven surveys conducted between 2009 and 2013), we analyzed nine indicators of health, nutrition, and education. We found that for all nine indicators, left-behind children performed as well as or better than children living with both parents. However, both groups of children performed poorly on most of these indicators. Based on these findings, we recommend that special programs designed to improve health, nutrition, and education among left-behind children be expanded to cover all children in rural China.

Abstract: Independent reading—unassigned reading for personal pleasure—has been shown to be an important driver of reading skills and academic success. Children that commonly read for pleasure exhibit higher academic performance. However, little research has been done on independent reading in rural China, where the education system is charged with schooling tens of millions of students. Many rural students fall behind their urban counterparts in school, with potentially troubling implications for China’s ongoing development. This article explores the prevalence of independent reading and its associations with reading ability and academic performance among rural students. Using a mixed methods approach, we analyze quantitative data from a survey of 13,232 students from 134 rural schools and interviews with students, teachers, principals, and caregivers. We find that independent reading is positively and significantly correlated with reading ability as well as standardized math and Chinese tests scores. Despite such correlations, only 17 percent of students report reading for pleasure for an hour a day. Interview findings suggest that inaccessible bookstores, curriculum constraints, unsupportive home environments, low availability of appealing and level-appropriate books, and insufficient school investment in reading resources may explain the low prevalence of independent reading.

We estimate the impact of two early commitment of financial aid (ECFA) programs—one at the start and one near the end of junior high school (seventh and ninth grades, respectively)—on the outcomes of poor, rural junior high students in China. Our results demonstrate that neither of the ECFA programs has a substantive effect. We find that the ninth-grade program had at most only a small (and likely negligible) effect on matriculation to high school. The seventh-grade program had no effect on either dropout rates during junior high school or on educa- tional performance as measured by a standardized math test. The seventh-grade program did increase the plans of students to attend high school by 15%. In examining why ECFA was not able to motivate significant behavioral changes for ninth graders, we argue that the competitiveness of the education system successfully screened out poorer performing students and promoted better performing students. Thus by the ninth grade, the remaining students were already committed to going to high school regardless of ECFA support. In regards to the results of the seventh grade program, we show how seventh graders appear to be engaged in wishful thinking (they appear to change plans without reference to whether their plans are realistic).

The goal of this study is to examine whether promising a conditional cash transfer (conditional on matriculation) at the start of junior high school increases the rate at which disadvantaged students matriculate into high school. Based on a randomised controlled trial (RCT) involving 1418 disadvantaged (economically poor) students in rural China, we find that a CCT voucher has no effect on increasing high school matriculation for the average disadvantaged student. The CCT voucher also has no differential impact on students at any point in the distribution of baseline academic achievement. This result suggests that CCTs, while shown to be effective in many contexts, do not always work.

We respond to Anning Hu's commentary on our report “College is a rich, Han, urban, male club: Research notes from a census survey of four tier one colleges in China.” The topic of assessing disparities in college access in China (and other developing countries undergoing major transitions in their higher education systems) is an important one. We hope that our China Quarterly article, Hu’s commentary and our response will stimulate more research and dialogue on this topic in China and elsewhere.