Education and social mobility

Much of the in-depth work done on educational access has focused on patterns of education inequality in a particular country. While this focus is necessary, a broader cross-national comparative analysis of results from in-depth national studies has the benefit of providing a deeper understanding into the intricate mechanisms of educational inequality. This paper reviews empirical evidence from intervention studies, in-depth field surveys, observational studies and results from qualitative survey findings in India, Indonesia and China with the aim of shedding light on mechanisms behind educational barriers, and comparing them to common patterns of inequality more commonly found in existing literature. Through this international comparison, I hope to understand if there is more to learn about eliminating barriers to education than merely looking at patterns of inequality, and if there are potentially transferable solutions to ameliorable barriers. Differences in patterns and mechanisms of educational inequality would be just as meaningful as similar patterns but different mechanisms (and vice versa) of inequality across these countries in understanding the promotion of human capital acquisition in Asia.

The study tests the hypothesis that sexual behavior is likely to affect differences in educational achievement among young females. The analysis in this study was based on the data on youths (15-24 years) drawn from the 2008 DHS individual recode data file (sample size=12,694). The chi-square test in the table shows that majority of the respondents who initiated sex about age 16, got married by age 18 and had their first birth by age 19, reported lower educational status than others. OLS model explains 51% of variations in educational status in terms of indicators of sexual behavior while controlling for confounding variables (age, urban residence and region). The beta coefficients indicate that sexual initiation at age 17 and above is positively associated with years of schooling. Similarly, age at first birth and marriage are positively associated with years of schooling. Ever use of modern contraceptives is also significantly positively associated with differences in educational status. It is therefore clear that to improve educational achievement of females in the country it is imperative to incorporate in education policy strategies to increase age at sexual initiation, age at first marriage and childbearing among young women.

This paper analyzes the impact of high school household income and scholastic ability on post-secondary enrollment in South Africa. Using longitudinal data from the Cape Area Panel Study, we analyze the large racial gaps in the proportion of high school graduates who enroll in university and other forms of post-secondary education. Our results indicate that family background and high school achievement are strong predictors of post-secondary enrollment and statistically account for all of the black-white difference in enrollment. Controlling for parental education and baseline scholastic ability reduces the estimated impact of household income on university enrollment, though there continues to be an effect at the top of the income distribution. We also find evidence of credit constraints on other forms of post-secondary enrollment. Counterfactual estimates indicate that if all South Africans had the incomes of the richest whites, African university enrollment would increase by 65%, even without changing parental education or high school academic achievement. The racial gap in university enrollment would narrow only slightly, however. Our results suggest that the racial gap in postsecondary enrollment results mainly from the from the large racial gap in high school academic achievement.

Disparity, measured in terms of educational attainment by social groups in India gives an insight into the progress made as a result of existing affirmative policies. Affirmative policies implemented for almost six decades are expected to bring the traditionally backward social group representation in higher education in par with the traditionally forward social group. An attempt was made to measure the intra and inter group disparities by demographic characteristics between and among the social groups by using the Theil index. Analysis showed that between groups disparity exists by social groups and within social group disparity is almost negligible in higher education. Analysis, further carried out by background characteristics of these social groups showed that within group disparity is seen only in females for all the states of India. Between group disparity showed that the group other is having higher educational attainment whereas traditionally backward social groups of India such still lag far behind the traditionally forward group others in terms of educational attainment. The disparities are multifaceted and differ from state to state in terms of the background characteristics. The policy maker should concentrate on this multifaceted disparity to achieve the equality in terms of achievement in higher education.

Brazil is well known for its high and persistent levels of income inequality. Throughout its recent economic history, under different conditions regarding policies and politics, income inequality remained high, and well above Latin American standarts. However, since 1997 inequality has been declining at a rate of 0.8 per cent per year, accelerating the pace after 2001 to 1.07 percent per year, when measured by the Gini coefficient, converging to the region's average.
It is often argued that the main source of Brazilian income inequality is the underlying inequality in the distribution of education. Based on empirical evidence from the National Household Survey, this paper shows how in recent years education has influenced labor income in two ways: first, via increased schooling; from 2001 on, via the reduction of inequality of schooling among workers. As a consequence, the wage gap of workers with differnt levels of schooling was reduced. From 1997 to 2009, reduced labor income inequality accounted for 2/3 of reduced total inequality. The fact that returns to education still remain high by international standarts shows the potential of education to further reduce income inequality, as well as income poverty in Brazil.

Submitted By
Sahab Deen
Ph.D Scholar, CSRD/SSS, JNU, India
Education plays an important role in the socio-economic development of the society. The educational factor is considered as the prime factor in the direction of removing social inequality. This paper focuses on comparison of the development of higher education between Scheduled Castes and Non-Scheduled Caste population in Uttar Pradesh after the liberalisation policy (post 1991) initiated by the Indian Government. The present paper analyse the district level pattern of enrollment in higher education among Scheduled Castes. Further, this study focuses on four important aspects of the above-mentioned issue. Firstly, it examines the distribution, spatial disparity and inequality in achievement of higher education among the Scheduled Castes and Non-Scheduled population in Uttar Pradesh. Further second section identifies different regions of unequal development in terms of achievement of higher education in several courses. Third section analyse the impact availability of colleges on gross enrollment ratio in Scheduled Castes concentrated districts of Uttar Pradesh. Fourth section examines the statistical analysis which highlights the factors responsible for such inequality in achievement of higher education.

This paper aims to quantitatively assess the effects of the decline of family size on the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic inequality in Ouagadougou, the capital city of Burkina Faso. More specifically, we will seek to ascertain the extent to which children's schooling outcomes vary across families with fewer versus more children, by social class. Does fertility limitation appear to be as viable (successful) a strategy for poorer families as for richer ones and, if so, might the decline in family size act to reduces the intergenerational transmission of inequality over the long-term? Data are from the DEMTREND survey that focused on children’s work and schooling behavior- on parents and also on grand-parents-, based on a subsample of the Ouagadougou DSS -, based on a subsample of the Ouagadougou DSS, which longitudinally follows a population of approximately 85000 in five neighborhoods in the capital city of Burkina Faso. This work will help us to know how demographic changes (family size and family composition) impact the transmission of social inequalities over three generations.

The return to school is an important part of academic trajectories in more economically advanced societies where it often serves as a strategy for skill enhancement and socioeconomic advancement. Very little is known about this phenomenon in Mexico even though many youth and young adults return to school after beginning their working lives.
The objective of this article is to describe trends in the return to school across three cohorts of Mexican men and women and to identify the factors that are associated with return to school. We use human capital and life course theory to generate hypotheses regarding the determinants of the return to school.
The results show that factors positively associated with the return to school in this population included having secondary schooling or more, being unmarried, having lived in an urban area one year before, having parents in nonmanual or professional occupations, and belonging to younger cohorts. In contrast, age had a negative association with return to school.
Men and women had similar risk to return to their studies, but we find that women belonging to oldest cohort and women without employment experience one year before were less likely to return to school than their male counterparts.

While India is being considered as one of the fastest growing economy in the world, majority of population does not evenly share the benefits of development that the top decile of the population have due to the presence of widespread social inequality in education, income, health and overall development. According to UN (2004), women are equally important as men in the process of development. In this paper, women’s role in the country’s development has been studied by bringing, examining and linking the issues of social cohesion and social participation with social inequality in India. Proxy indicators have been validated to measure social cohesion. Using NFHS-3 (2005-06) data, social cohesion, social participation and social inequality have been measured from women’s perspectives. Social inequality has been used as a proxy for underdevelopment and it has been found to be linked with low social cohesion and low social participation by women. Results from bivariate and multivariate analyses show that controlling for other factors, social cohesion is found to be significantly related to social inequality among women in India. Undoubtedly, social inequality among women has strong socio-religious patterns which again turn out to be the foundation of asymmetrical development of a region.

Children’s educational achievement is important to success in adult life. Previous research has shown, for example, that achievement is associated with educational attainment, adult economic status, and health outcomes. Inequality in children’s achievement by socioeconomic status is of significance because it is intrinsically undesirable and because of its potentially important role in the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. We investigate the dimensions of intergenerational socioeconomic status and family background that matter most for inequality in children’s achievement. The goals are threefold. First, we examine inequality in children’s achievement outcomes and the effects of inequality in family socioeconomic status. Second, we examine multigenerational effects of family socioeconomic status on inequality in children’s achievement by examining and contrasting the effects of parents’ and grandparents’ status. Third, we advance statistical and mathematical methods for analyzing inequality in children’s outcomes (or other measures) that incorporate regression-based decomposition. We examine effects of parent and grandparent income, wealth, education, cognitive skills, and neighborhood economic status. We use data from the U.S. Panel Study of Income Dynamics’ Core and Child Development Supplement.