Education Reform,Artificial Intelligence and Rural Youth Employment
China is implementing employment-first strategy,attaching great importance to job creation.The global phenomenon of youth unemployment is spreading and has become a critical issue in China's public policy.According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China,the youth unemployment rate in China reached 14.9％in December 2023,which was three times higher than the adult unemployment rate.The ratio is comparable to some countries in Southern Europe,North Africa,and South America.This study focuses on rural youth,as the long-standing urban-rural education gap in China has resulted in lower skill levels among rural youth,making them less resilient in the face of economic slowdown.Meanwhile,China has been promoting the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence(AI),but rural youth have not seen a simultaneous improvement in their ability to adapt to new technologies,which is one of the most significant factors in the youth unemployment issue in China.The study aims to explore how educational reforms can improve the educational level of rural youth in China and thereby enhance their employment rate and employment stability.According to survey data,in 2019,the high school graduation rate for urban youth aged 19-24 in China was 94％,while the rate for rural youth was only 69％.This is due to the nine-year compulsory education policy in China,which defines the scope of free education.The weak economic foundation and potential short-sightedness of rural families lead to their reluctance to pay for high school education.Therefore,this study focuses on whether free high school education can increase the educational attainment of rural youth and thereby improve their labor market outcomes.Additionally,the study considers the potential negative impact of AI on the employment performance of rural youth,for rural youth were mainly engaged in labor-intensive manufacturing,and new technologies may worsen their labor market outcomes.Based on the capital-skill complementarity theory,this study combines these two themes and examines in the same empirical model whether free high school education can improve the labor market outcomes of rural youth in the AI era.The study takes the 12-year free education policy promoted by several local governments in China during the period of 2010-2012 as a quasi-natural experiment and utilizes a difference-in-differences(DID)approach to examine the impact of high school education expansion on the labor market performance of rural youth in the AI era.The study reveals three findings.Firstly,the application of AI is leading to a shift of rural youth from manufacturing to the service industry,thereby lowering their employment rate and employment stability.Secondly,the 12-year free education policy significantly increases the high school enrollment and graduation rates of rural youth,and the expansion of high school education improves their employment performance.Considering the negative impact of AI on the employment of rural youth,the improvement effect still persists.Thirdly,the mechanism analysis shows that the expansion of high school education mitigates the skill gap in the occupational matching of rural youth,and vocational high schools play a more important role compared with regular high schools in the impact of the 12-year free education policy on the employment outcomes of rural youth.This study has important policy implications for developing countries.A viable measure to address the problem of youth unemployment is educational reform.Firstly,the government can provide longer periods of free education or compulsory education for young people,helping them acquire more advanced cognitive and soft skills to better adapt to the AI society.Secondly,the government needs to allocate high school education resources based on population migration trends,allowing greater access to education for more economically disadvantaged families.Thirdly,the government needs to promote vocational education reform,encouraging more families to consider vocational education for their children to acquire specialized human capital that meets business needs,thereby improving the youth employment rate and employment stability.
万方数据
维普
