We test the extent of parental forgone consumption used instead to invest in
children’s human capital by use of intrahousehold resource allocation models. Using an
unusual, comprehensive data set for urban China, we find more spending on boys aged
13-15 but more on girls aged 16-18, suggesting that standard human capital theories and
traditional perceptions of gender bias do not completely explain educational expenditure
decisions. The evidence from urban China is consistent, though, with human capital
models which consider parental intertemporal preferences. Also, our findings suggest
that the perceived bias in favour of sons exists weakly in contemporary urban China.