Assessing household financial burdens for preprimary education and associated socioeconomic inequalities: a case study in China

BACKGROUND: Providing young children with universal access to preprimary education (PPE) is considered a powerful tool for human capital development and eliminating the intergenerational transmission of poverty. To remove household financial barrier for achieving universal PPE, this study proposed a measure to identify households incurring ‘heavy financial burdens from paying for PPE’ (HBPPE) and conducted a case study in China. METHODS: Using nationally representative data in 2019, we estimated the percentage of households with HBPPE (spent 7% or more of their total annual expenditure) and associated socioeconomic inequalities. We also applied a three-level logit regression model to investigate the factors associated with the probabilities of households incurring HBPPE. RESULTS: Half of the sampled households spent 7% or more of their expenditures on PPE. Households in the lowest wealth quintile (54%) or households with children attending private PPE (55%) had higher percentages of HBPPE than households in other wealth quintiles (eg, 51% in the highest wealth quintile) or households with children attending public kindergartens (41%). Logit regression analysis shows that the poorest households and households with children attending private kindergarten were more likely to incur HBPPE than their counterparts. CONCLUSION: To ensuring universal access to PPE in China, future policy should consider increasing the enrolment of children from low-income families in public kindergartens and increasing governmental investments in low-income households by subsidising children attending PPE.