How does family background affect children’s educational achievement? Evidence from Contemporary China

Education is a lasting process. Academic performance in primary education plays a crucial role in obtaining further educational opportunities. Thus, it is necessary to examine how family background affects children’s academic achievement at an early stage. Through analysis of data from the Chinese Family Panel Study in 2010(CFPS2010), this paper proposes two pathways through which family influences children’s academic performance. Firstly, parents compete for high-quality educational opportunities for their children and better educational opportunities lead to better academic performance. Secondly, parenting behavior and educational support for their children could cultivate children’s learning habits and affect academic performance. We also find urban students’ academic performance are more heavily affected by their families’ socioeconomic status compared with rural students. These findings bear important implications for how to reduce the class difference in students’ academic performance and promote educational equity in contemporary China. © 2018, The Author(s).