Abstract
•Higher education has a positive and significant effect on individual’s International Socioeconomic Index (ISEI) of groups born from 1960s to 1980s in China, but the effect declines over time.•The original family also has significant effect on individual’s ISEI, but the effect is much smaller than that of higher education.•Although the higher education has been much more accessible since late 1990s, the rural residents ISEI is much lower than that of city/urban residents, while communist party members, government employees, and Eastern China region residents enjoy a premium.•Gender and minority status have no statistical differences in ISEI in this study.
The study finds that the higher education and parents’ occupations both have a significant impact to individual’s social economic development measured by ISEI (International Socioeconomic Index), but higher education’s impact is greater. In addition, from 1980s to 2000s, the impact of higher education has been diminishing as the access to higher education increased significantly. Data also shows that certain sectors, such as government employees, Chinese Communist Party members, city/urban households, had a clear advantage. To our surprise, gender and minority status had no statistical difference in ISEI. Several policies were recommended to break the social stratification in the near future.