School Boarding and Students’ Prosocial Behaviors: Evidence from Rural China

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Yunsen Li,Guochang Zhao,Yunlu Li,Liang Luo
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12486

©2023 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

China & World Economy / 115–139, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2023 115

School Boarding and Students’ Prosocial Behaviors:

Evidence from Rural China

Yunsen Li, Guochang Zhao, Yunlu Li, Liang Luo*

Abstract

This study investigated the eff ects of boarding at school on students’ prosocial behaviors

in rural China using data from the National Children’s Study of China. The instrumental

variable (IV) approach was used to control for potential endogeneity, and the IVs were

the proportion of boarding students in higher grades and the school area per student.

The ordinary least squares and IV estimates showed that boarding students exhibited

more prosocial behaviors, including compliance with rules, positive traits, and altruistic

attitudes. These results were robust. Heterogeneity analyses suggested that students

from low-income families, children who were not “left behind,” high-grade students,

and female students were more likely to benefit from boarding. We found that these

eff ects were primarily due to boarding students developing stronger feelings of trust and

support from their peers and teachers and participating in more school-organized events

and team activities.

Keywords: boarding at school, formation of prosocial preference, prosocial behaviors,

social interaction, students in rural China

JEL codes: D01, J24, O15

I. Introduction

It is widely recognized in China that the quality of education varies greatly between

rural and urban areas (Song, 2012). Some local governments in underdeveloped areas

believed that closing teaching points and merging schools would improve educational

*Yunsen Li, Associate Professor, School of Economics, Southwest University of Political Science and

Law, China. Email: lysenwise@hotmail.com; Guochang Zhao (corresponding author), Professor, Research

Institute of Economics and Management, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China. Email:

guochangzhao@swufe.edu.cn; Yunlu Li, Postgraduate Student, School of Economics, Southwest University

of Political Science and Law, China. Email: liyunlu9494@outlook.com; Liang Luo, Professor, Beijing Normal

University, China. Email: luoliang@bnu.edu.cn. This work was sponsored by the Science and Technology

Project of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (Nos. KJQN202100309 and KJZD-K202200307), the

Chongqing Education Science Project (No. 2018-GX-006), and the Southwestern University of Finance and

Economics under the 111 Project Research Base (No. B16040).

Yunsen Li et al. / 115–139, Vol. 31, No. 3, 2023

©2023 Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

116

quality and reduce the educational disparity between rural and urban areas. Many rural

students are unable to attend schools in their immediate vicinity due to the uneven

distribution of the rural population. Consequently, many boarding schools have been

established, and boarding enrollment has increased sharply in recent years. According

to the Ministry of Education of China, the number of boarding students at rural primary

schools (grades 1–6) and junior secondary schools (grades 7–9) reached 10.76 million

in 2018 and 21.71 million in 2019. The corresponding boarding enrollment rates were

10.4 percent and 46.7 percent, respectively. They were even higher in rural areas in western

China, at 15.7 percent and 57.8 percent, respectively (Ministry of Education, 2019).

The prevalence of boarding schools in rural China has led to much concern and

debate regarding the effects of school boarding on children’s development. Current

research, however, has not yet reached a consensus. Several studies have indicated

that boarding at school may negatively impact students’ nutritional health, academic

performance, and cognitive development (Wang et al., 2016). On the other hand, Liu and

Villa (2020) argued that boarding positively impacted students’ cognitive abilities. In

addition to common human capital accumulation, boarding at school may also infl uence

students’ moral development and prosocial behaviors. Typical boarding students leave

home and live with classmates in the absence of their families. These collective lives,

which diff er from family lives in many ways, can increase social interactions and, as a

result, alter social preferences (Doepke and Zilibotti, 2017). The purpose of this study

is to provide a better understanding of how school boarding aff ects children’s prosocial

orientation in rural China.

This paper examines the formation of prosocial behaviors in children. Researchers

have demonstrated that prosociality is essential in determining individual performance

and organizational success. According to La Porta et al. (1997) and Deming (2017),

prosocial preferences contribute to an organization’s success. Other research provides

evidence that social preferences influence individual achievement (Fehr et al., 2009;

Carpenter and Seki, 2011; Kosse and Tincani, 2020). A policy’s success may also be

determined by the degree of prosociality among people in society. Campos-Mercade et al.

(2021) concluded that prosociality predicted an individual’s healthy behaviors during

the COVID-19 epidemic. Consequently, prosociality is also an important component of

human capital, and the impact of school boarding on prosociality should be investigated.

The most challenging aspect of studying the eff ects of school boarding on prosociality

is the lack of data on prosocial behaviors. Publicly available microdata sets mostly lack

relevant data. Many attempts in this fi eld depend upon data collected by the researchers

themselves, which may be subject to problems of data representativeness. Fortunately, the

National Children’s Study of China (NCSC) provided social preference variables based