Abstract: Education is a feasible way to achieve class mobility, and the distribution of educational opportunities is closely related to the relative income level of parents. This article uses the China Family Panel Studies survey data from 2010 to 2016 to examine the effect of parents'relative deprivation on their children's educational opportunities. The research shows that: (1) Parents' relative deprivation has a significant inhibitory effect on their children's educational opportunities; In addition, parents' age, hukou, education, marital status, health status, children's age, hukou, and family education expenditure, family size and other factors all have a significant impact on children's educational attainment; (2) By distinguishing parents' hukou, we find that the parents' relative deprivation on children's educational attainment is significantly negative only when their hukou status is rural, and not significant under the status of non-agricultural hukou; (3) The regression results based on the child's gender sub-sample show that compared with girls, parents'relative deprivation has a slightly greater effect on boys; (4) In terms of children's school age, the effect of parents' relative deprivation on children's educational attainment has a significant "U-shape" as the children's age increases; the impact of parents' relative deprivation on their children's educational attainment is as follows: pre-school stage <higher education stage <high school stage; but not significant in the compulsory stage. Further, use of the PSM method, after considering the selection bias, the conclusion is still robust. Based on these, the corresponding policy implications are given.

Key words: the parents' relative deprivation, educational attainment, hierarchical logit model