In this paper, we assess the effect size of return to schooling in China through a systematic review of 85 research works, which report a total of 1041 estimates regarding the impact of years of schooling on wage level during the transition period. We also examine possible differences between state and private companies, urban and migrant workers, urban and rural regions, female and male workers as well as periods from this viewpoint. Our results indicate that return to schooling in China in the period of 1985-2016 has a medium effect size in terms of partial correlation coefficient. It is also revealed that there exists a certain gap between different ownerships, hukous (household registration), regions, and genders. Dynamic time-series change in return to schooling is regarded as an additional important finding from the quantitative literature survey in this paper.
