The Trend of Educational Inequality in China during 1940 - 2011

Because Hukou system has been existing for long time which resulted persistent and severe inequalities between urban and rural residents, including educational inequality. In today’s China, urban-rural segmentation is the most influential factor affecting educational inequality, and educational gap between urban and rural population is much large than of class, race, gender and nationalities. This paper, based on national survey data of 2006, 2008 and 2010, examines the change of the educational inequality between urban and rural residents over time. It concludes that educational gap between urban and rural children has been continuing to enlarge in spite of rapid educational expansion.