







































 

 

 

 

 

The Influence of Teacher Gender on 

Student Human Capital Development: 

An Empirical Study Based on Data from 

China Education Panel Survey

Wenyan Liang,
1
 Tao Li,

2
 Qian He

1
 

 
1. Faculty of Education/Capital Institute for Economics of Education, 

Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.  

2. Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai University of Finance and 

Economics, Shanghai 200433, China 

 

Abstract: Based on data from China Education Panel Survey, this article 
examined the impact of teacher gender on student human capital 

development at the junior secondary education level. The research 

findings showed that female teachers were more capable of promoting 
cognitive and non-cognitive ability development of both girl and boy 

students than their male counterparts; and that student cognitive and 

non-cognitive performance was significantly and negatively related to 
the increase in the percentages of male teachers in the class and school. 

Best Evidence in Chinese Education 2023; 13(2):1703-1707. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.23.ar036 

How to Cite: Liang, W., Li, T., & He, Q. (2023). The influence of teacher gender on 

student human capital development: An empirical study based on data from China 

education panel survey. Best Evidence in Chinese Education, 13(2):1703-1707. 

Keywords: Teacher Gender, Gender Imbalance, Cognitive Ability, Non-Cognitive Ability, 

Human Capital Development 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Liang et al. (Beijing & Shanghai). Teacher Gender and Student Human Capital Development. 

BECE, Vol.13, No.2, 2022 1704 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

Correspondence to: Wenyan Liang, Faculty of Education/Capital Institute for Economics of Education, Beijing 
Normal University, Beijing 100875, China. E-mail: wenyan_liang@163.com  

Conflict of Interests: None. 
 

© 2023 Insights Publisher. All rights reserved. 

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the 

Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 License 

(http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of 

the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed by the Insights Publisher. 

mailto:wenyan_liang@163.com
http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/


Liang et al. (Beijing & Shanghai). Teacher Gender and Student Human Capital Development. 

BECE, Vol.13, No. 2, 2023 1705 

Introduction 

Over the past several decades, Chinese basic education staff have been increasingly 

feminized. From 2001 to 2020, the percentages of female full-time teachers in Chinese 

primary and junior secondary schools increased from 49.65% and 40.37% to 74.67% 

and 86.23%, respectively. It sparked wide concern that teacher gender imbalance may 

pose an unfavorable impact on basic education students, especially boy students, as they 

are in the critical stage of human capital development (Heckman et al., 2006). As a re-

sult, in the teacher training sector, some scholars proposed to encourage male students 

to apply for universities of teachers by offering preferential conditions such as lowered 

admission scores and tuition fee reduction to expand the number of male teacher candi-

dates (Zhai, 2013). Some teachers’ colleges have formulated and implemented special 

enrollment policies with which male students could be admitted with lower Gaokao 

scores, and some local education departments have launched free pre-service education 

projects for male students. Can teacher gender balance policies successfully promote 

student human capital development? This study utilized data from China Education 

Panel Survey (CEPS) 2014-2015 to examine the impact of teacher gender and gender 

composition on student human capital development and paid special attention to indica-

tors of student cognitive and non-cognitive performance which are closely related to 

male teachers’ advantages. 

Data and Variables 

Source of Data 

This study was based on CEPS’ baseline data in the academic year of 2013-2014 and 

follow-up data in the academic year of 2014-2015. The sample was made up of 9075 

junior secondary school students from 111 schools across the country who participated 

in the survey as the seventh and eighth graders as well as 288 class teachers and 244 

math teachers of these students. 

Variable Selection 

Variables in this study included student human capital (measured by student cognitive 

and non-cognitive performance); teacher gender; the percentage of male teachers at the 

organizational level; control variables comprised of student, family, and school charac-

teristics.   

Balance Check 

To ensure that the fixed effects model of schools was less affected by the sample selec-

tion bias, balance check was conducted to confirm there were no correlations between 

teacher gender and student characteristics among different classes. 

Research Findings 



Liang et al. (Beijing & Shanghai). Teacher Gender and Student Human Capital Development. 

BECE, Vol.13, No. 2, 2023 1706 

The Influence of Teacher Gender on Student Human 

Capital Development 

The benchmark model estimation results showed that in terms of the influence of teach-

er gender on student cognitive performance, the coefficients of male teachers are signif-

icantly negative in the models with student math scores and cognitive ability test scores 

as dependent variables; regarding the impact of teacher gender on student non-cognitive 

performance, the coefficient of male teachers is negative but not significant in the mod-

el with student creativity as the dependent variable, while in all other models, the coef-

ficients of male teachers are significantly negative. The results indicate that female 

teachers can generally better promote student human capital development than their 

male counterparts. 

The Teacher-Student Gender Matching Effect in the in-

fluence of Teacher Gender on Student Human Capital 

Development 

To check the teacher-student gender matching effect is to examine whether female 

teachers can more effectively enhance human capital of girl students than male teachers 

and whether male teachers can more successfully increase human capital of boys than 

female teachers. The coefficient of the variable of teacher gender generated by the ran-

dom intercept model estimation is almost the same in value and significance as that re-

sulted from the benchmark model estimation. The results of the four robustness checks 

were consistent with the benchmark model estimates, which showed that the latter were 

basically reliable and validated that compared with female teachers, male teachers have 

a negative impact on the improvement of student cognitive and non-cognitive perfor-

mance. 

The Effect of Teacher Gender Composition on Student 

Human Capital Development 

With the increase in the percentages of male teachers in the school and class, the growth 

of human capital among students declined to varying degrees. 

Conclusions 

It can be concluded that compared with their male counterparts, female teachers can 

more significantly promote student human capital; that compared with their female 

counterparts, male teachers are less capable of improving boy students’ cognitive and 

non-cognitive performance (except for creativity); and that the increase in the propor-

tions of male teachers in the school and class negatively affects student cognitive and 

non-cognitive performance. 



Liang et al. (Beijing & Shanghai). Teacher Gender and Student Human Capital Development. 

BECE, Vol.13, No. 2, 2023 1707 

The analysis from the perspective of teacher qualifications and behavioral emotions 

demonstrated that female teachers are more successful in establishing close teacher-

student relationships, making students perceive teachers’ concern about them, incorpo-

rating information technologies into instruction, and delivering praise in proper ways, 

which all contribute to their outperforming male teachers in promoting student human 

capital development. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References 

Heckman, J. J., Stixrud, J., & Urzua, S. (2006). The effects of cognitive and noncognitive abilities on 

labor market  

outcomes and social behavior. Journal of Labor Economics, 24(3):411 -482. 

Zhai, C. C. (2013) Causes of teacher gender imbalance in basic education and countermeasures. Jour-

nal of the Chinese Society of Education, 2013(3):112-113. 

 

The Chinese version of this article has been published in Education & Economy, 2022, 38(6):35-44. 

The English version has been authorized for being publication in BECE by the author(s) and the 

Chinese journal. 

 

梁文艳, 李涛 & 何茜. 教师性别对学生人力资本发展的影响—基于中国教育追踪调查数据的实

证研究. 教育与经济, 2022, 38(6):35-44. 

 

 

Received: 10 January 2023 

Revised: 01 February 2023 

Accepted: 04 March 2023 

 

 

 

 

 


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