Assessing household financial burdens for preprimary education and associated socioeconomic inequalities: a case study in China

Background Providing young children with universal access to preprimary education (PPE) is considered a powerful tool for human capital development and eliminating the intergenerational transmission of poverty. To remove household financial barrier for achieving universal PPE, this study proposed a measure to identify households incurring ‘heavy financial burdens from paying for PPE’ (HBPPE) and conducted a case study in China.Methods Using nationally representative data in 2019, we estimated the percentage of households with HBPPE (spent 7% or more of their total annual expenditure) and associated socioeconomic inequalities. We also applied a three-level logit regression model to investigate the factors associated with the probabilities of households incurring HBPPE.Results Half of the sampled households spent 7% or more of their expenditures on PPE. Households in the lowest wealth quintile (54%) or households with children attending private PPE (55%) had higher percentages of HBPPE than households in other wealth quintiles (eg, 51% in the highest wealth quintile) or households with children attending public kindergartens (41%). Logit regression analysis shows that the poorest households and households with children attending private kindergarten were more likely to incur HBPPE than their counterparts.Conclusion To ensuring universal access to PPE in China, future policy should consider increasing the enrolment of children from low-income families in public kindergartens and increasing governmental investments in low-income households by subsidising children attending PPE.