Does school shutdown increase inequality in academic performance? Evidence from COVID-19 pandemic in China

The school shutdown due to the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can lead to an increase in educational inequality through disproportionately affecting disadvantaged children. We use data from a unique survey of 7202 junior high school students and their parents from Shaanxi province to explore whether the school shutdown enlarged the educational gap between students with different parental socioeconomic statuses (SES) during the pandemic. We find that students with more highly educated parents experienced an increase in relative test rankings after the shutdown period. A 1-year increase in parents' education led to a relative 0.18-percentile increase in students' rankings of total test scores. We also identify the mechanisms behind the enlarged gap by means of heterogeneity analyses. We show that parents' education mainly affected children's academic performance through parents' engagement in their children's homeschooling, mitigating the negative impacts of Internet addiction on students, and serving as substitutes for teachers who were unable to teach well online.