"Widening Gap": the Overall Status and Group Differences of Chinese Families' Educational Investment

Family is the "axis" of educational reproduction. Educational investment is an important way for families to compete for scarce educational resources for their children. Using the data of "China Family Panel Studies in 2014, this paper makes an empirical analysis on the overall status and group differences of Chinese families' educational investment. The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1) the total expenditure on children's education presents a V-shaped structure along with the differences of the educational stages. The expenditure on Pre-school, junior, and middle school educations are higher than that on primary school education; (2) the "shadow" educational expenditure outside school presents gradual growth from pre-school to primary school and then to junior and middle schools. (3) Compared with low- and middle-income families and rural household registration families, higher-income families and urban household registration families not only have obvious comparative advantages in children's total education expenditure and "shadow" education expenditure, but also have higher willingness to invest in children's education. The research concludes that in the period of market-oriented transformation, structural inequality and "growth differentiation" due to children's educational expenditures aggravate the cumulative disadvantage of vulnerable groups' education, resulting in the "widening gap" between different groups.