The One-child Policy and its Impact on Investment in Educating Girls in Rural China

Abstract

Girls in rural China were helped by the One Child Policy (OCP) because it increased the overall levels of enrollment for girls in school. While the rural areas lagged the urban ones, a cross-panel data comparison shows that the long-term impact was seen in the increased academic achievement for girls when they surpassed boys in higher education institutions in the 2010s. The cultural challenges that reduce the chances of education for girls still exist; among them is a patrilineal system that puts more value on the birth of boys than girls. This paper attempts to investigate the OCP and how it affected educational investment for girls in rural areas based on currently available literature. Moreover, this paper attempts to identify the differentials between families that had firstborn daughters and secondborn sons on differences in educational investment. The son preference has affected the education investment of girls, and the evidence in this study illustrates that even though the situation has improved, there is a need for civic education in China’s rural areas. This is because the competition for resources, especially in cases where the firstborn was a daughter and the secondborn was a son, disproportionately favored sons, thereby affecting the overall educational attainment of daughters.