BECE. Newsletter 

Vol.7, No.1, 2021 927 

 

 

 

 

Income Inequality, Education Competition, and the 

Model of Family Engagement in Education 

By Li, J., & Zhang, M. 

Correspondence to: Li, J., Lecturer, Research Institute for International and 

Comparative Education, Shanghai Normal University, China. Email: 

eduhappycharlie@163.com 

N order to “not let children lose at the starting line”, parents get deeply 

involved in their children’s educational life through various ways such as 

educational consumption, parental participation, and emotional support. 

Some scholars have proposed that “over-parenting” has appeared, while oth-

ers have also put forward that this is an inevitable “transitional” parenting 

strategy presented with the development of society, economy, culture, and 

education. Whether it is “over-parenting” or “transitional” parenting, a sur-

vey published in The Journal Education Research, based on the 2018 data of 

the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 79 countries and 

regions, Take the student’s academic level as the dependent variable. Select 

the way of family education investment, including the two dichotomous vari-

ables of the education resource investment and emotional investment, and 

divide the family education investment into four categories: neglect invest-

ment with less investment in education resources and less emotional support, 

and investment with more education resources but more emotional support 

Material investment, emotional investment with less investment in educa-

tional resources but more emotional support, comprehensive investment with 

more investment in educational resources and more emotional support. The 

macro-level GDP per capita, the Gini coefficient, the gross enrollment rate of 

higher education, and the micro-level control variables such as family wealth, 

parents’ highest professional status, and education level are included. 

The article used a two-level multinomial probit (multinomial probit) 

model to estimate the data, and the research results are as follows: 

 Different family education investment methods of family academ-

ic performance present the characteristics of “comprehensive in-

vestment in parenting method > material investment in parenting 

method ≥ emotional investment in parenting method > neglected 

investment in parenting method”. 

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Vol.7, No.1, 2021 928 

 The effect of income inequality and education competition on the 

choice of household education investment mode presents a non-

linear U-shaped curve relationship. 

 China is at a stage of high-income inequality and a high gross en-

rollment rate of higher education. Parents can achieve class mo-

bility through educational competition by adopting comprehen-

sive and material-based investment parenting methods that are 

more beneficial to academic performance. 

This study found that the current level of emphasis on student family 

education has not reached “excessive”, and it is still in the “transition” stage 

of development. Therefore, my country does not need to emphasize and ad-

vocate the restriction of family education investment but needs to encourage 

and guide parents to choose a reasonable way of family education investment. 

 

Source: Educational Research, 2020; 41(8):75-84.