Journal of East China Normal University(Educationa ›› 2018, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (5): 51-59+167.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2018.05.005

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How College Education Promotes Intergenerational Mobility: An Empirical Study on the Comparison of Graduates' City of Birth, College and Job

MA Liping, LIU Yanlin   

  1. Graduate School of Education/Institute of Education and Economics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
  • Online:2018-09-20 Published:2018-09-14

Abstract: This paper analyzes how college education promotes intergenerational mobility from the perspective of city level. Using the 2017 national college graduates' employment survey data, it analyzes the direction, rate, level, and influencing factors of college students' intergenerational mobility at city levels of their birth, college and job. The study finds that college education significantly enables students to enter higher-level cities for work than their cities of birth, especially the key universities education and postgraduate education; the lower the level of their birth cities, the higher the proportion and opportunities to enter higher-level cities. Further research reveals that there are mainly two ways in which college education promotes intergenerational mobility:first, college institutions are predominantly located at higher-level cities in China; second, college education increases human capital, which helps college graduates find jobs at higher-level cities.

Key words: intergenerational mobility, employment of college graduates, social equality