Changes In Educational Inequality Research Articles

Educational Expansion as a Driver of Longer Working Lives?

This study investigates the contribution of educational expansion to changes in labour force participation among Europeans aged 55-74 between 2000 and 2019, while accounting for changes in educational inequalities in labour market activity. We use data from the European Union Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) for 26 countries and Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition methods to analyse the extent to which changes in the education structure may account for rises in labour force participation rates among older workers in these countries, and the degree to which returns to education have changed. Overall, we found that educational expansion is positively associated with increases in labour force participation, albeit with substantial cross-country variation in the scale of this association. A driving factor was the decrease in the share of the population with low education levels, followed by an increase in the share of those with high education levels. While activity rates rose in most countries and among all levels of education, the largest increases were observed among people with a medium level of education. Activity rates of low-educated older workers, especially women, grew at a substantially lower pace in some countries, exacerbating educational inequalities in labour force participation at older ages. The study suggests that educational expansion has been a driver of longer working lives in Europe. However, it also indicates that changes in health, working conditions and age norms at the microlevel, as well as pension and labour market reforms at the macrolevel, can be assumed to have played a dominant role in countries where increases in labour force participation were the most significant.

Changes in educational inequalities in knee and hip osteoarthritis surgery and non-surgery specialist care visits over time in Sweden

ObjectiveTo examine changes in prevalence and socioeconomic inequalities in knee and hip OA outcomes, in more specific surgery and non-surgery specialist care visits, from 2001 to 2011 in Sweden and to what extent sociodemographic factors can explain the changes. DesignWe included all individuals aged ≥35 years resident in Sweden from 2001 to 2011. Individual-level data was retrieved from the Swedish Interdisciplinary Panel. Highest educational attainment was used as socioeconomic measure and the concentration index was used to assess relative and absolute educational inequalities. We used decomposition method to examine changes in prevalence and relative educational inequalities. ResultsA total of 4,794,693 and 5,359,186 people were included for the years 2001 and 2011, respectively. The crude prevalence of surgery and specialist visits for knee and hip OA was 36–83% higher in 2011 than in 2001. The increase in hip OA outcomes was largely explained by changes in the sociodemographic composition of the population, whereas for knee OA outcomes, changes in the strength of the associations with sociodemographic factors appeared more important. All outcomes were concentrated among people with lower education in all study years. The relative inequalities declined over the study period, while the absolute inequalities increased for knee OA outcomes and remained stable for hip OA. ConclusionOur findings show an increasing burden of all studied OA outcomes. Moreover, our findings suggest persistent educational inequalities with more surgeries and specialist visits among lower-educated individuals. Future research should incorporate additional variables to better understand and address these inequalities.

Widening educational inequalities in mortality in more recent birth cohorts: a study of 14 European countries

BackgroundStudies of period changes in educational inequalities in mortality have shown important changes over time. It is unknown whether a birth cohort perspective paints the same picture. We compared changes...

Trends in mortality from alcohol, opioid, and combined alcohol and opioid poisonings by sex, educational attainment, and race and ethnicity for the United States 2000–2019

BackgroundThe ongoing opioid epidemic and increases in alcohol-related mortality are key public health concerns in the USA, with well-documented inequalities in the degree to which groups with low and high education are affected. This study aimed to quantify disparities over time between educational and racial and ethnic groups in sex-specific mortality rates for opioid, alcohol, and combined alcohol and opioid poisonings in the USA.MethodsThe 2000–2019 Multiple Cause of Death Files from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) were used alongside population counts from the Current Population Survey 2000–2019. Alcohol, opioid, and combined alcohol and opioid poisonings were assigned using ICD-10 codes. Sex-stratified generalized least square regression models quantified differences between educational and racial and ethnic groups and changes in educational inequalities over time.ResultsBetween 2000 and 2019, there was a 6.4-fold increase in opioid poisoning deaths, a 4.6-fold increase in combined alcohol and opioid poisoning deaths, and a 2.1-fold increase in alcohol poisoning deaths. Educational inequalities were observed for all poisoning outcomes, increasing over time for opioid-only and combined alcohol and opioid mortality. For non-Hispanic White Americans, the largest educational inequalities were observed for opioid poisonings and rates were 7.5 (men) and 7.2 (women) times higher in low compared to high education groups. Combined alcohol and opioid poisonings had larger educational inequalities for non-Hispanic Black men and women (relative to non-Hispanic White), with rates 8.9 (men) and 10.9 (women) times higher in low compared to high education groups.ConclusionsFor all types of poisoning, our analysis indicates wide and increasing gaps between those with low and high education with the largest inequalities observed for opioid-involved poisonings for non-Hispanic Black and White men and women. This study highlights population sub-groups such as individuals with low education who may be at the highest risk of increasing mortality from combined alcohol and opioid poisonings. Thereby the findings are crucial for the development of targeted public health interventions to reduce poisoning mortality and the socioeconomic inequalities related to it.

Social origin and educational attainment in China: a historical analysis of 70 birth cohorts

The impact of social origin on educational attainment is conditioned on the social context in which people live. In recent decades, with changes in the Chinese society, how has the impact of social origin on educational inequality changed? Based on an analysis of 70 birth cohorts, this study details the effect of social origin on educational inequality and its trends over the past 70 years. The results of this study also indicate that the historical stages hypothesis (HSH) and model-shift hypothesis (MSH) emphasized in previous studies cannot fully describe the historical changes in educational inequality. In addition to macrosocial processes, there may exist other structural factors that also affect educational inequality but are neglected. The social context and its transformation, which shaped the relationship between social origin and educational inequality, need to be examined in more detail.

Early tracking and socioeconomic inequality in academic achievement: Studying reforms in nine countries

Between-school tracking is high on the agenda of academicresearchers and policy makers, as tracking children early in the school career is believed to enhance socioeconomic inequalities in learning opportunities. Contemporary debates on the relevance of inclusive education in the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Germany, may learn from changes in educational inequalities that have emerged after past reforms from early tracking to comprehensive systems. I study educational inequalities by socioeconomic background in nine countries, across time. Using a difference-in-difference design and international student assessment data collected among eighth-graders, it is demonstrated that socioeconomic inequalities are more strongly reduced in systems that have transformed their educational system from tracked to comprehensive education than in systems without this reform. Moreover, the reduction of social inequalities was most eminent at the top of the achievement distribution. Among top-performers, socioeconomic inequality was reduced after the reform. Among low-performing students, the reform did little to the level of inequality by social background. Robustness checks showed that especially the reform in England and Wales was influential on the observed reduction of inequalities in mathematics performance.

Re-emergence of educational inequalities in cervical cancer mortality, Colombia 1998–2015

Aim of the studyTo perform an in-depth evaluation of the trends and recent levels of inequalities in cervical cancer mortality in Colombia. MethodsUsing Colombian national mortality statistics, we calculated age-standardized mortality rates (ASMR) as well as age-specific rates per 100,000 person-years, applying redistribution factors according to international recommendations. We imputed missing data for educational level. Multivariate Poisson regression models were constructed to incorporate age and educational level as independent variables. To assess changes in educational inequalities, we estimated the Relative Index of Inequality (RII). All estimates were also evaluated over time, resulting in estimated annual percent changes (EAPC). ResultsOver time, cervical cancer mortality declined rapidly up to 2013 (EAPC = −5.4%, ASMR 27.2 in 1998, 12.5 in 2013), after which ASMR stabilized. This pattern was present in all but the youngest age group and in all educational levels, but much stronger initial declines were observed among women with tertiary education (EAPC = −8.3%) compared with those with primary (EAPC = −4.0%) and secondary (EAPC = −3.4%) educational levels. The overall RII was 6.77 (95%CI: 6.15, 7.47), varying from 3.5 for women aged 65 and over, to 8.5 in women aged 25–44. Significant increases in inequality were observed for middle-aged (EAPC = +2.9%) and young (EAPC = +2.4%). ConclusionCervical cancer mortality rates were highest at older ages, but inequalities are concentrated in the younger age groups – and increasing. Considering the recent stagnations in improvement in cervical cancer mortality as well as it inequalities, public policies addressed to reduce cervical cancer mortality are recently failing.

Changes in educational inequalities in Poland. Comments on Zbigniew Sawiński’s article “Education reform and inequality: fifteen years of new lower secondary schools in Poland”

Changes in educational inequalities in Poland. Comments on Zbigniew Sawiński’s article “Education reform and inequality: fifteen years of new lower secondary schools in Poland”

Trends in educational inequalities in premature mortality in Belgium between the 1990s and the 2000s: the contribution of specific causes of deaths

BackgroundReducing socioeconomic inequalities in mortality, a key public health objective may be supported by a careful monitoring and assessment of the contributions of specific causes of death to the global...

Educational stratification after a decade of reforms on higher education access in Brazil

The policies Brazil has implemented in the last decade to increase social inclusion—based on both socio-economic status and race—might have reduced the educational disadvantages associated with being non-white and poor. Recent research on Latin America has found a strengthening of the association between social origin and educational attainment—at least for early educational transitions—among cohorts who grew up in the 1980s, and a weakening of the association for cohorts growing up in the 2000s. This pattern aligns with signs of declining economic inequality in the continent. However, the decline in economic inequality coupled with an unprecedented expansion of education, including higher education, would suggest a weakening of the influence of social origin on educational opportunity for multiple educational transitions, not only early transitions. The goal of this paper is to examine recent changes in educational inequality by social origin and race in Brazil. We use a unique nationally representative data set collected by ILO in 2013 from respondents age 21–29 to answer the following two questions: As Brazil achieved universal enrollment in primary education and consistently high enrollment levels in secondary education, have the effects of social origin on secondary schooling entrance, secondary schooling completion and college access changed? Has the extent of the non-white disadvantage in education declined for younger cohorts? We provide the first assessment of inequality of opportunity in late educational transitions conducted after these key changes in Brazilian educational policy. The results show that while younger cohorts enjoy more egalitarian educational opportunities relative to older cohorts, important bottlenecks linked to persistent inequalities based on both social origin and race remain, particularly for the completion of secondary schooling.

“Lost at the starting line”: a reconsideration of educational inequality in China, 1978–2008

This research explores the changes in educational inequality between school transitions in China. Due to the mechanism of differentiated selection, life course, and heterogeneous early education, the impact of students’ socioeconomic status and cultural background on their educational opportunities is expected to decline in secondary and higher education, while the impact of the grade of school is assumed to rise. A multinomial logistic regression was carried out to test this hypothesis based on the 2008 Chinese General Social Survey. Results show that the early stages see the most severe inequality of educational attainment; as students move up to higher stages of education, the contribution of SES and cultural background is largely replaced by the grade of school. Therefore, more emphasis should be put on educational inequality at an early stage.

Relative Risk Aversion from a Dynamic Perspective. Explaining Educational Mobility

This paper deals with the principle of relative risk aversion (RRA), which has been put forward by Breen and Goldthorpe (1997) as an explanation of inequality in educational attainment. While the original idea of the concept is to account for the basic mechanisms that produce educational inequality, this paper argues that RRA can also provide an explanation of dynamic processes related to changes in educational attainment over successive birth cohorts. RRA provides a rationale for educational upward mobility vis-a-vis the parents’ generation whenever educational requirements attached to occupations change. Relatedly, RRA can also account for changes in educational inequality if these processes vary with social origin. The paper elaborates on these implications theoretically and also suggests an empirical analytical framework for testing the explanatory contribution that the RRA principle can make to changes in educational mobility and inequality. The empirical analyses refer to Germany as a test case and utilize data from the German Microcensus and ALLBUS studies. The findings indicate that the RRA principle actually provides a partial explanation of educational upward mobility and also accounts for substantial parts of the changes in inequality in educational attainment.

Changes in the Multi‐Level Effects of Socio‐Economic Status on Reading Achievement in Sweden in 1991 and 2001

This study examines the changes in educational inequality at the school‐ and individual‐levels in 1991 and 2001. Comparisons are made between the IEA Reading Literacy Study 1991 and the so called 10‐Year Trend Study in PIRLS 2001. The between‐school differences in reading achievement variance and the size of the relationship between SES and reading achievement at school‐level are the two main focuses. Applying a two‐level structural equation modeling technique, it was found that the between‐school differences in reading achievement were greater in RLS 2001 than in RLS 1991, and the school SES effect has been strengthened over time. These changes indicate that educational inequality in Sweden has increased over time. Some possible explanations to these changes are discussed with reference to school reforms and demographic changes.

Changes in Intergenerational Mobility and Educational Inequality in Estonia: Comparative Analysis of Cohorts Born between 1930 and 1974

We analyse intergenerational social mobility in Estonia comparing four cohorts born between 1930 and 1974. The article addresses three main research questions. First, how have absolute mobility rates changed in Estonia? Second, what have been the trends in social fluidity across birth cohorts? Third, what is the role of education in explaining changes across cohorts? Separate analyses are carried out for men and women. Analysis is based on data from the Estonian Social Survey, 2004-2005, which gathered retrospective information about the work histories of respondents as well as their social origins. We find that social fluidity certainly varies across cohorts but not in any way that could be characterized as a trend towards greater or lesser inequality. Comparisons of cohorts born in the 1930s and in the 1940s showed that social fluidity increased for both sexes. The increase continued for the cohort born in the 1950s but only for women belonging to that cohort. For men the association between origin and destination started to increase in the cohort born in the 1950s. For women that trend was noticeable for the youngest (1974) cohort. Our conclusion is that changes in social fluidity, across cohorts in Estonia, have been driven by changes in educational inequality.

Educational Inequality and Juvenile Crime: An Area-Based Analysis

This paper focuses on the links between educational inequality and juvenile conviction rates for violent crime, stealing from another person, burglary in a dwelling and racially motivated offences. We use area-based data on conviction rates, educational attainment and educational inequality for three cohorts of young people and employ mixed-effect models to estimate the impact of between-cohort changes in educational inequality on conviction rates. Our results show that, above and beyond impacts of absolute access to resources, young people who grow up in school cohorts marked by higher levels of disparity in educational achievement are more likely to commit violent crime and racially motivated offences than those with less disparity. This association was not found for property-related offences. Our results suggest that if governments wish to be tough on the causes of crime as well as on crime itself, it must address issues of relative deprivation.

Educational inequalities in mortality among Israeli Jews: Changes over time in a dynamic population

Changes in educational inequalities in mortality in a country that underwent a sudden population growth were examined using two census-based longitudinal studies from Israel (I, 1983–1992, n=152,150 and II, 1995–2004, n=209,125). Relative changes in educational inequalities in mortality were assessed using mortality rates and odds ratios and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Decreases in mortality rates and widening relative educational inequalities in mortality were seen over time. Among recent immigrants, educational inequalities in mortality existed but to a lesser degree than for residents. The widening gap (2.5-fold) in cardiovascular disease mortality risks observed for low versus high educated middle-aged women, was particularly alarming. The observed decreasing mortality rates, indicative of a healthier society, alongside widening educational inequalities in mortality indicates uneven changes within the population.

Trends in socioeconomic inequalities in adult health behaviors among U.S. states, 1990-2004.

The purpose of this study was to measure state trends in educational inequalities in smoking, binge alcohol use, physical inactivity, obesity, and seatbelt use. The authors calculated the Relative Concentration Index of educational inequality for five health behaviors on adults from all 50 states and the District of Columbia using data from 1990 to 2004 in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (n=2,118,562). Linear regression was used to measure changes and trends in the Relative Concentration Index of health inequality across education groups in each state. Except for binge alcohol use, poorer health behaviors were concentrated among the less educated. The largest educational inequalities were for physical inactivity. From 1990 to 2004, significant increases in relative educational inequalities occurred in 40 states for smoking and 31 states for physical inactivity. For binge alcohol use, 27 states showed significant declining inequality trends, but educational inequalities reversed direction and binge alcohol use is now more prevalent among the less educated in 19 states. Significant decreases in educational inequalities occurred in 36 states for obesity and 24 states for seat belt use. Changes in educational inequalities across the different health behaviors were not associated, except for a modest correlation between changes in inequality in smoking and binge alcohol use (r=0.40; p=0.004). Similarly, there was little association between changes in the population prevalence of health behaviors and changes in educational inequality in health behaviors, with substantial heterogeneity among states. State trends in relative educational inequality among health behaviors were mixed, increasing for smoking and physical inactivity and decreasing for obesity and seat belt use. The factors influencing relative inequality trends may differ from those affecting overall prevalence trends.

Trends in educational inequalities in smoking in northern, mid and southern Italy, 1980–2000

Background. We aimed to determine the direction and magnitude of socioeconomic inequality in smoking in Italy over the last two decades, focusing on both national and macro-regional patterns. Methods. We used data from six National Health Interview Surveys from 1980 to 2000, whose sample size ranged between 60,000 and 140,000. We calculated age-adjusted prevalence rates of current smoking and estimated odds ratios (OR) and relative indexes of inequality (with 95% confidence intervals) using logistic regression analysis. Results. In men aged 25–49, the OR of current smoking of low compared to high educated was 1.26 (95% CI: 1.16, 1.37) in 1980 and 1.71 (95% CI: 1.62, 1.80) in 2000. A reversal of the association between education and tobacco use from positive (OR = 0.43) to negative (OR = 1.12) was found for women of the same age group. Changes in educational inequalities in smoking were similar between different macro-regions for men, whereas among women, smaller differentials over all the study period were found in southern regions compared to central and northern regions, despite similar direction in trends. Conclusions. The gap between high- and low-educated groups has widened, especially in the youngest generations. Southern regions lag behind central and northern Italy in the progression of the smoking epidemic.

Educational Inequality

Abstract. This paper develops a theoretical model of the inequality in wages and salaries associated with differences in years of schooling (educational inequality, for short). Our model assumes that in the long run individual decisions to become more educated equalize the lifetime earnings of more educated workers and comparable less educated workers. Given this assumption, our model implies that innovations that increase the relative demand for more educated labor, and which cause short‐run increases in educational inequality, in the long run induce offsetting increases in the relative supply of more educated labor. But our model also has the novel implication that innovations that increase differences between the wages and salaries received by workers with the same years of education who are more or less able (ability premiums, for short) cause a smaller fraction of workers to choose to become more educated. Consequently, innovations that increase ability premiums in the long run also cause educational inequality to be larger than otherwise. In applying our theory to recent changes in educational inequality in the USA, we suggest that, to the extent that innovations that increase ability premiums are contributing to educational inequality, the increases in educational inequality during the 1980s and 1990s are unlikely to be reversed soon.

Cohort changes in educational inequality

This paper examines the implications of using birth cohorts to examine changes in educational attainments over time. It argues that birth cohorts underestimate the impact of educational expansion by ignoring the period in which attainments were actually completed. As an alternative, event cohorts—defined by the period in which a particular event occurs—may be used, especially for activities that do not take place on a regular or continuous basis. To this end, education cohorts defined by period of highest attainment have been devised. The respective merits of birth cohorts and event cohorts are compared using sample data on educational attainments in Australia. Event cohorts are found to have particular advantages in depicting changes in the level of attainments, and in identifying the sources of educational inequality.