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This paper examines the impact of residents’ human capital investment inequality on the urban–rural income gap, using China’s provincial panel data from 1997 to 2013. The results show that, at the national level as well as at the regional level, residents’ overall human capital investment inequality has a positive significant impact on the urban–rural income gap. In addition, the impact of overall human capital investment inequality increased monotonically from the eastern region inward to the western region. In terms of the relative impact of each component of human capital investment inequality on the urban–rural income gap, migration investment inequality appears to have the greatest impact at the national level, whereas health investment inequality has the greatest impact on the urban–rural income gap in the eastern region, and education investment inequality exhibits the greatest impact in the central and western regions. We also investigate the impact of human capital investment inequality on the urban–rural income gap over different periods. The results show that residents’ overall human capital investment inequality had a positive impact on the urban–rural income gap in the period 1997–2008, but the impact rapidly shrunk in 2009–2013. Furthermore, the impact of residents’ health investment inequality on the urban–rural income gap shows a downward trend, and the impact of residents’ education investment inequality trended slightly upward from 1997 to 2008, and then rapidly shrunk in 2009–2013. Finally, the impact of residents’ migration investment inequality was only significant in 1997–2002.

In this paper I investigate the nature of the differential in poverty by ethnicity in rural China using data from the Chinese Household Income Project in 2002. For that, I compare observed poverty with that in a counterfactual distribution in which ethnic minorities are given a set of relevant village and household characteristics of the Han majority. In particular, I investigate the importance of the location of minorities in explaining their higher poverty levels. The ethnic poverty differential does not change after equalizing the distribution of the population by geographical region (unless we use a higher poverty line). However, it is reduced after equalizing other locational characteristics of minorities (such as them living in less developed and mountainous areas), their larger number of children, their low education, and their fewer skilled non-agriculture workers. Finally, the ethnic per capita (log) income differential is shown to be higher for higher percentiles, with an increasing role of the geographical region as the main driver of these higher differentials.

This chapter reviews the status of Education For All (EFA) in China and identifies four gaps: between rural and urban residents, between residents of geographic regions, between ethnicity groups, and between the genders. It turns to examine the educational situation and interests of girls weighed down by the crushing burden of multiple disadvantages in “left-behind” Western China. Based on analysis of macro-level socio-economic and educational conditions, along with rich micro-level data on girls’ vigorous pursuit of education, the authors argue that the changing conditions of rural girls’ lives and their education can best be understood from a critical empowerment perspective. Summarizing the global discourse and cross national evidence on the benefits of girls’ education, the chapter and looks beyond a utilitarian perspective and argues for the cogency of a critical empowerment framework. Filled with telling stories and case studies of Han Chinese, Tibetan, and Muslim girls, this chapter proposes that prioritizing girls’ education in Western China is crucial and required for achieving the MDG of gender parity. Even though girls are often stranded by family financial conditions, their actions and ideas seeing education as their future reflect a changing gender identity and role in the family and society. The fieldwork suggests that educating girls promotes localized development, reduces dangerous levels of economic gaps and social instability, but also advances hard to measure effects: personal and civil empowerment, and sustainable, harmonious cultural change – as well as MDG.

This study examines the extent to which educational outcomes are transmitted from mothers to daughters in rural China. An analysis of the 2010 China Family Panel Survey reveals that: (i) how far daughters go in their education is strongly associated with their mothers’ education; (ii) the association between mothers’ and daughters’ educational outcomes in rural China was found to be stronger than the corresponding relationships between mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, and fathers and sons, especially at higher levels of education; and (iii) while having more brothers and being born later worsens daughters’ educational outcomes, mothers’ higher education effectively mitigates these negative effects. These findings add to a growing body of literature and empirical evidence that challenges conventional social mobility research paradigms that neglect mothers’ roles. More importantly, the distinction between mother–daughter relationship and that between fathers and daughters and mothers and sons highlights the fact that education is likely transmitted intergenerationally via mechanisms that differ depending on the gendered parent–child pairs.

As Jennifer Adams notes in her paper, a number of studies within the U.S., as well as some studies in China and other low- and middle-income countries, have begun to address the ways that communities impact schooling outcomes. The potential role played by communities in local education has strengthened with the shift toward administrative and fiscal decentralization in many developed and developing countries. Often, fiscal decentralization results in a greater reliance on community financing of schooling, which, in turn, strengthens the association between where students live and the quality of educational services they receive (Bray, 1996a, 1996b).

Purpose: This chapter revisits digital financial inclusion as an international development agenda and discusses everything you need to know about digital financial inclusion.

Methodology: This chapter uses conceptual discourse methodology to explain digital financial inclusion.

Findings: This chapter identifies the definitions of digital financial inclusion, the goal of digital financial inclusion, the components of digital financial inclusion, the types of providers of digital financial services, the instruments for digital financial inclusion, the benefits of digital financial inclusion, the risks of digital financial inclusion, and the regulatory issues associated with digital financial inclusion. It also proposes suggestions on how to make digital financial inclusion work for the good of all. This chapter concludes by offering some implications for policymaking and practice in the digital finance ecosystem.

The purpose of this study is to review the landscape of empirical evidence on school leadership preparation and subsequent school-level effectiveness while conceptually exploring how societal transformations and educational changes shaped leadership development within the mainland of the People's Republic of China. Conceptually, this study is informed by Murphy and Vriesenga's (2006) comprehensive review of empirical work on leadership preparation, evaluative work on the pathway from preparation to school-level practice (cf, the UECA taskforce on evaluating the effectiveness of leadership preparation; Orr & Kottkamp, 2003; Orr & Orphanos, 2011) and empirical literature on school improvement. Data come from extensive reviews of English and Chinese language articles, conference papers, doctoral and master's theses, and other reports of research on the preparation of school leaders in Mainland China. Using a combination of inductive and deductive strategies, the lead author analyzed all selected sources using a three-pronged framework: who is being prepared for school leadership positions in China, by what design and delivery methods they are being prepared, and how well they are fulfilling leadership practices and expectations for which they are being prepared. The current analysis adds to the international knowledge base of the pathway between preparation and practice. It also highlights the importance of considering the cultural, social, and political context that shapes conceptions of leadership and the design and implementation of educational leadership preparation programs.

This study investigated four different economic level areas of China (Shanghai, Shandong, Shaanxi, and Guizhou) to analyze the eastern and western urban and rural media service status at different development stages. This set of data comes from the comparison of regional urban and rural areas and indicates the various aspects of differences in the survey area, including the media use habits, media resources, media consumer demand, evaluation of media services, the role of media in public life, public knowledge level, and so on. On analyzing data comprehensively, one thing can be found that there is a positive correlation between the public media contact degree and the public knowledge level. The media plays an extremely important role in public life and regional public knowledge gap between urban and rural areas exists. Furthermore, this gap is positively correlated to the media resources and media exposure. The trend of media using on mobile phone and computer in urban areas increases significantly greater than in rural areas. Then, how to narrow the urban–rural and regional public knowledge gap and reduce the negative impact of the digital divide will be an important urgent task.