Abstract：Based on the relative education theory, this paper used the Chinese General Social Survey data from 2003 to 2015 to examine the influence mechanism of educational expansion on the transmission of intergenerational social status in Chinese urban areas. When education is regarded as a positional good, the educational expansion will erode the value of education in the labor
market. This study found that the influence of family background on status acquisition gradually increased along with the decline in the relative value of education in the labor market, and the influence of family background was greater than that of family educational background. This finding helps explain the current debate about whether educational expansion reduces social inequality. Its practical significance lies in that, when the education diploma cannot help the children cross the expected status“threshold”, the parents will afford more resources to make up for the deficiency of children’s education competitive advantage, so as to help children obtain the expected social status.
