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Does online education magnify educational inequalities? Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic

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  • Sun, Yue
  • Tang, Can
  • Zhao, Zhong

Abstract

Taking the closure of all primary and secondary schools in China at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as a quasi-natural experiment, this paper examines the impact of online education on student academic performance and the role of family socioeconomic status (SES) in the K-12 online environment. We employ a difference-in-differences approach and find that online learning has a positive effect on the performance of previous high-achieving students and a negative effect on low-achieving students. Further, employing the difference-in-difference-in-differences method, we find that students from high-SES families improve their GPA by 0.464 points after distance learning relative to disadvantaged students, i.e., the gap between low and high SES performance widens by 16.7 %, and this effect is more pronounced among students in primary schools and in provinces where online education lasts longer. The mechanism analysis shows that high-SES families help their children make academic progress in online education by developing their children's academic locus of control, providing access to information and communication technology, and increasing study time.

Suggested Citation

  • Sun, Yue & Tang, Can & Zhao, Zhong, 2024. "Does online education magnify educational inequalities? Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:88:y:2024:i:c:s1043951x24001937
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2024.102304
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Online education; Socioeconomic status; Educational inequality; Academic locus of control;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

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