Educational burden reduction, educational inequality, and enrollment pressure: Evidence from China

With the introduction of a series of educational burden reduction policies in recent years, it has become a major concern for governments and society whether these policies can alleviate students' academic burden. This paper constructs an educational burden reduction policy index and evaluates the impact of the "30 Articles on Educational Burden Reduction (the AEBR)" implemented in 2018 on students' academic burden and physical and mental health. The results show that the AEBR significantly increases the daily sleep duration of primary and secondary school students, but has no significant effects on students' academic burden and mental health, indicating that the implementation of the AEBR is ineffective. Furthermore, we find that the AEBR widens the gap between household educational expenditure, indicating that the implementation of the AEBR increases educational inequality. Finally, we demonstrate that prolonged and widespread enrollment pressure has significantly undermined the effectiveness of the implementation of the AEBR.