Employing individual-level data from surveys of national probability samples, this dissertation investigates educational transition and labor market in the context of China's economic reform and the expansion of tertiary education since the late 1990s. It consists of three self-contained but related papers.

First, I examine the transition from academic senior high school to tertiary education. Using data from a multi-stage national probability sample collected in 2008, I show that attending key-point senior high school has a significant positive effect on one's likelihood of entry into tertiary education, even after taking account of the selection into these schools.

Second, using a stratified random sample of college students in Beijing, I show that for students who were admit...[ Read more ]

Employing individual-level data from surveys of national probability samples, this dissertation investigates educational transition and labor market in the context of China's economic reform and the expansion of tertiary education since the late 1990s. It consists of three self-contained but related papers.

First, I examine the transition from academic senior high school to tertiary education. Using data from a multi-stage national probability sample collected in 2008, I show that attending key-point senior high school has a significant positive effect on one's likelihood of entry into tertiary education, even after taking account of the selection into these schools.

Second, using a stratified random sample of college students in Beijing, I show that for students who were admitted to colleges in 2006, who completed four years of college education, and entered the labor market by 2011, those who graduated from Project 211 universities earn significantly more than their counterparts who graduated from non-211 universities. After taking into account the selection into Project 211 universities based primarily on academic performance in the College Entrance Exam, the wage premium of attending Project 211 universities remains significant.

Last, employing multiple waves of national representative survey data, I investigate earnings returns to tertiary education relative to upper secondary education in urban China from 1988 to 2008. I show a clear trend of an increasing college premium, but this trend has been reversed since the mid-2000s, when a larger cohort of college graduates who benefited from the dramatic expansion of higher education since 1999 entered the labor market.