In recent decades, the intricate pathways through which historical educational systems influence contemporary labor markets have emerged as a compelling subject of scholarly inquiry. A pioneering study by Chen, Li, and Zhu (2025) sheds new light on the enduring effects of the Imperial Examination System (IES) on employee wages in modern China, emphasizing the multidimensional roles of human and social capital in shaping economic outcomes. By employing a rigorous combination of econometric techniques and extensive data analysis, the research unpacks how the legacy of the IES transcends time, driving not only educational attainment but also innovation, capital structure, and migration patterns across Chinese cities.
At the heart of the investigation lies the concept of human capital, notably the valuation of education culture. Historical prestige associated with Jinshi achievers — the highest-ranking scholars in the Imperial Exams — correlates strongly with contemporary educational metrics. Utilizing data from China’s 2010 micro census alongside macro-level city educational statistics dating back to 2004, the study deploys both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) models to control for endogeneity and spatial correlations. The findings reveal robust, positive effects of Jinshi density on key educational indicators such as average years of schooling, university expansion, educational investment, and employment within the educational sector. Remarkably, a 1% increase in Jinshi density leads to about a 5.6% increase in average schooling years after instrumental variable adjustments, closely aligning with prior estimates, thus confirming the importance of entrenched educational culture sustained by historical elite influence.
Delving deeper into the composition of educational attainment, the study explores the degree structure of the contemporary workforce. The legacy of the Imperial Examination System appears instrumental in elevating the proportions of workers holding postgraduate, graduate, and vocational degrees, reflecting a qualitative transformation in human capital beyond mere quantity. Gender-based analyses uncover nuanced effects, with Jinshi density negatively correlating, albeit insignificantly, with the share of female high school graduates but positively, yet also statistically weakly, with male counterparts. Moreover, the system’s influence is associated with a reduction in the share of middle-school degree holders, suggesting an overall upgrade in educational quality that boosts employability and earnings.
Complementing educational qualifications, professional titles within firms form another facet of human capital where the IES legacy is imprinted. Detailed examinations reveal that a 1% increase in Jinshi density modestly, but significantly, boosts the share of senior title holders by 0.1% across genders, while effects on middle and junior titles are approximately four to five times greater. This gradient suggests that the historical emphasis on rigorous examinations and rankings persists in shaping hierarchical structures in the labor market, enhancing wage prospects for a broadly distributed range of skilled professionals, rather than exclusively benefiting top-tier elites.
Beyond individuals’ skills and credentials, social capital channels constitute a potent mechanism connecting historical education policy to economic performance. Innovation ability, a critical ingredient for sustained economic growth, exhibits strong positive responsiveness to Jinshi density increases. The study’s multi-proxy approach to innovation—scrutinizing R&D expenditure, patent applications, patent authorizations, and invention authorizations per capita—reveals significant magnitudes. For instance, a 1% increase in Jinshi density corresponds to approximately a 31% rise in R&D spending after addressing endogeneity biases. Similarly, patent activity surges by over 30%, with invention authorizations experiencing an extraordinary near 50% jump. These findings emphasize that the theoretical criticism claiming the IES stifled innovation fails empirical scrutiny; rather, the system appears to have laid a robust foundation for China’s modern inventive capacities.
Alongside innovation, the structure of paid-in capital within enterprises surfaces as a critical conduit through which the IES continues to exert influence. The study parses capital sources into national, collective, corporate, personal, Hong Kong-Macau-Taiwan, and foreign invested categories to evaluate differential impacts. Instrumental variable estimates indicate significant inflows associated with Jinshi density for all categories except personal capital. To exemplify, national paid-in capital sees a 7.8% rise per 1% Jinshi increase, collective capital grows by 4.4%, and corporate capital remains robustly linked with the IES legacy. In contrast, personal capital declines markedly, by over 30%. This distinctive pattern suggests that historically rooted elite networks may facilitate larger institutional and cross-border investments, potentially crowding out smaller personal investments, thereby influencing firm structure and wage dynamics in complex ways.
Migration patterns represent yet another dimension through which the IES legacy permeates contemporary labor markets. Previous literature has suggested that educational attainment encourages internal migration, with graduates relocating to regions offering better economic prospects. Using census data and estimates of population flows, the study calculates net migration rates for working-age adults via a composite measure factoring in population changes, aging cohorts, and mortality adjustments. The results indicate a positive, significant association between Jinshi density and immigration rates, alongside a non-significant but negative association with out-migration. This pattern implies that historically educated elite regions remain magnets for workforce inflows, potentially facilitating local human capital agglomeration, knowledge spillovers, and wage growth.
The multilayered analysis presented by Chen and colleagues transcends a mere correlation narrative by carefully addressing methodological challenges such as simultaneity, omitted variable bias, and spatial clustering. The consistent employment of instrumental variables with spatially correlated error structures bolsters confidence in the estimated effects, evidencing that the Imperial Examination System’s imprint is entrenched across multiple channels spanning education, professional credentials, innovation, capital formation, and migration.
This research not only elucidates the channels sustaining the IES’s long-term impacts but also offers a compelling example of how historical institutions—often dismissed as archaic—can actively shape contemporary economic trajectories. By elevating human capital quality and diversity, fostering inventive capabilities, channeling robust institutional investments, and attracting talent through migratory flows, the IES emerges as a powerful and persistent force underlying regional wage disparities and economic dynamism in present-day China.
The implications extend beyond academic interest, touching upon debates on education policy, institutional persistence, and economic development strategy. Understanding how cultural and institutional legacies mold human and social capital can guide policymakers in leveraging historical strengths to spur innovation-driven growth and equitable wage expansion. Moreover, the interplay between elite education systems and capital structures hints at the importance of designing financial and labor market policies that balance large-scale investment incentives with inclusivity.
Ultimately, the study exemplifies the intricate tapestry of historic legacies woven into modern socioeconomic fabrics. The nuanced understanding of how the Jinshi-based Imperial Examination System persists in influencing education culture, degree structures, job title hierarchies, innovation capacities, capital inflows, and migration flows charts a holistic narrative of long-lasting institutional impact. Such comprehensive explorations reaffirm the critical role of interdisciplinary, data-driven social science research in decoding the profound forces shaping labor markets and economic disparities in one of the world’s most populous and rapidly evolving nations.
As China continues to navigate its development path amidst global competition and technological change, insights into the enduring effects of educational history provide invaluable guidance. The Jinshi legacy, etched in both human capital accumulation and socio-economic networks, underscores how the past can sculpt pathways for future prosperity, offering lessons relevant not only for China but for other countries pondering how entrenched institutions can be catalysts rather than constraints.
These findings invite further scholarly exploration into other historical education systems worldwide, posing questions about the universality of such effects and the mechanisms through which educational institutions create sustained economic value. By blending rigorous empirical evidence with rich historical context, Chen, Li, and Zhu’s study marks an important milestone in understanding the subtle yet powerful forces that translate educational tradition into contemporary economic dividends.
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Chen, X., Li, D. & Zhu, P. Long-term impacts of historical education policy on wages in China: insights on over-education.
Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12, 959 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05084-4
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