A multilevel analysis of pupils’ travel distance to primary school: Simultaneously modelling origins and destinations

Understanding children’s travel distance to school is essential for promoting educational equity and well-being. In China, the hukou (household registration) system, which regulates access to education and other public services by place of official registration, shapes the distribution of educational resources. Yet little research has examined school travel distance in this context or the individual and contextual sources of its variation. This study employs nested and cross-classified multilevel models to analyse how individual and contextual factors affect pupils’ travel distances, as well as exploring interactions between these factors, and link these findings to hukou-based enrolment. By simultaneously considering multiple geographies, this study reveals that children’s travel distance is shaped by both individual-level factors and contextual-level determinants at both origins and destinations. Individual and contextual variables are not isolated in this process, with hukou status as a key individual factor, school type mediating the relationship between hukou and travel distance, and a cross-level interaction also existing between neighbourhood population density and hukou status. Those findings indicate that hukou-based school enrolment plays an important role in shaping pupils’ travel distances, making reform of related enrolment policies a priority for advancing educational equity and guiding future planning.