Inclusive education and institutionalized political participation: evidence from China’s ‘Two Exemptions and One Subsidy‘ reform

Political inclusion of disadvantaged groups is vital for sustainable development, yet most empirical evidence on the education-participation nexus comes from democratic contexts, with limited understanding of how this relationship operates in alternative political systems. This paper evaluates the long-term impact of China’s ‘Two Exemptions and One Subsidy’ reform on institutionalized political participation, focusing on urban-rural disparities. Using a cohort difference-in-differences design and Chinese General Social Survey data, we find that the reform significantly narrowed the rural-urban gap in the likelihood of joining the Chinese Communist Party and labour unions, but had no significant effect on the grassroots voting. Mechanism analysis indicates that education acted as a sorting mechanism: by raising years of schooling and personal income, the reform improved rural residents’ access to political resources. The effect of the reform on the Party membership was more pronounced in economically disadvantaged regions. These findings extend existing models of political participation to state-led systems and show how inclusive education can reduce political inequality beyond captivating political literacy.