The impact of term-time working on college outcomes in China

This dissertation study focuses on a current and controversial phenomenon in Chinese universities and colleges--student working during academic semesters. The massification of Chinese higher education since the year of 1999 raises the level of competition in the job market of college graduates. More and more undergraduate students participate in work while enrolled, with a hope that the working experience could help them perform better in the job market. However, working during academic semesters might be harmful to students' educational achievement since it may occupy their time and energy for studying. In addition, it may not be able to provide students with valuable practical trainings, as many term-time jobs are low-skill and labor-intensive jobs. Therefore there is an increasingly passionate debate among educational policy makers on whether higher education institutions should encourage students to work during term time. The current Chinese literature consists of mostly sub-national descriptive studies with weak research design that provide little in-depth investigation on this issue. This dissertation is the first empirical study of the impact of term-time working on students