The Short- and Long-Run Impacts of Free Education on Schooling: Direct Effects and Intra-Household Spillovers

Abstract This study estimates the direct and spillover effects of a free education programme on educational outcomes in rural China. We find that, although the programme encourages more eligible children to attend secondary school, it also leads to a decrease in high school enrolment among ineligible girls with eligible siblings, as they are more likely to choose work instead. In the long run, males exposed to free education have more years of schooling than their non-exposed counterparts. However, such effect is not found among females. This disparity suggests that a gender-neutral policy may have an asymmetric effect between males and females because of spillover effects through intra-household resource allocation.