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American Economic Review Vol. 110 No. 11 2020

Arrival of Young Talent: The Send-Down Movement and Rural Education in China

Yi Chen1; Ziying Fan2; Xiaomin Gu3; Li-An Zhou4

1 Institute for Economic and Social Research, Jinan University, and School of Entrepreneurship and Management, ShanghaiTech University (email: ) · 2 School of Public Economics and Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (email: ) · 3 International Business School, Shanghai University of International Business and Economics (email: ) · 4 Guanghua School of Management, Peking University (email: )

open access

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects on rural education of the send-down movement during the Cultural Revolution, when about 16 million urban youth were mandated to resettle in the countryside. Using a county-level dataset compiled from local gazetteers and population censuses, we show that greater exposure to the sent-down youths significantly increased rural children’s educational achievement. This positive effect diminished after the urban youth left the countryside in the late 1970s but never disappeared. Rural children who interacted with the sent-down youths were also more likely to pursue more-skilled occupations, marry later, and have smaller families than those who did not.

DOI
10.1257/aer.20191414
Volume
110
Issue
11
Pages
3393-3430
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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