Essays on education and family behaviour

This thesis explores children’s education and related family behaviours, focusing on the interactions among children, parents, and schools. It uses large-scale survey and administrative data from China and England to study these relationships from three perspectives. Chapter 1 examines effect of parents' inputs, including family and private tutoring, on students’ educational outcomes. Using data from the CEPS, the results show that tutoring has limit positive effects on school exam performance, and negative effects on cognitive ability. Further analysis suggests that private tutoring strengthens test-taking ability rather than cognitive skills, indicating that exam-oriented tutoring brings short-term gains but may harm cognitive ability development. Chapter 2 investigates how school meal policies influence parents’ time allocation in leisure and labour market. Using DID imputation method with CGSS and CHFS data, this chapter finds that providing school meals reallocate parents' time and increase their time spending in labour market. Our results in heterogeneity suggest that that providing school meals narrows socioeconomic gaps in parents' welfare. Chapter 3 analyses how religious festivals that coincide with school days affect students’ attendance and academic performance. Using data from the National Pupil Database, the study applies an instrumental variable strategy based on the exogenous timing of religious festivals determined by the lunar calendar. The findings show that religious festivals falling on school days increases students’ absences, and that these additional absences negatively impact students’ educational outcomes. Our research suggests that adjusting the school term dates can lower pupils’ absence rates and improve educational attainment in districts with a large number of students with specific religions.