Distribution Of Educational Attainment Research Articles

A - 38 Variance in Educational Experiences among Older Adults Enrolled in an Alzheimer's Disease Research Cohort.

In the United States (U.S.), educational experiences can be wide-ranging. We examine educational experiences in an Alzheimer's disease (ad) research cohort to understand how the representation and distribution of these experiences may affect the generalizability of conclusions in ad research. An online survey was administered to cognitively unimpaired participants (n = 135) in the UPenn ad Research Center clinical cohort. Self-report questionnaires gather sociodemographic data, including age, race, disability, education, and schooling. We report comparisons to U.S. educational attainment and examine correlations between education variables and executive function as measured by trail making test (TMT) B and digit span backward. The sample of 135 older adults averaged 74years old, had about 17years of schooling, and were mostly women (61%). All had at least a high school degree. About 11% had a high school diploma, about 8% had an associate's degree, 24% had a 4-year college degree, 33% had a master's degree, and over 20% had professional degrees. The distribution of educational attainment is not representative of the U.S. older adult population. More education associates with higher performance on TMT-B and digit span (both p < 0.008), particularly among those with the highest attainment. Our findings suggest older adults enrolled in ad research have more education than the U.S. older adult population and a range of experiences in their schooling. We discuss three ways that the underlying distribution of educational experiences may affect the generalizability of conclusions drawn from ad research cohorts.

The efficiency of public spending on education: Lower and higher secondary education

Research on the efficiency of public spending on the education sector hardly addresses the territorial distribution of educational attainment. This paper tries to fill in the gap by verifying whether the analysis of spatial differentiation of educational attainment could provide crucial information on the financial policy in this sphere and assess the impact of the socio-economic factors upon the education level evaluated through school tests. Our article aims to identify the relationship between spending on public education and the degree of educational attainment and inter-regional inequality in Poland. The research results showed that the spatial approach should not be ignored when assessing the relationship between public education expenditure and the degree of educational achievement. We note that the applied public financing of second-level education in Poland does not reduce regional disparities in education but maintains them at a constant level.

Inequalities in Education : A Case Study of Dhubri District, Assam, India

Gender inequality refers to the inequality between men and women in any aspect. Educational Inequality is the unequal distribution of educational attainment including educational opportunities and achievement within a particular region. The educational attainment between men and women always varies in our society. The literacy gap between male and female is not only found in Dhubri district alone but in the state of Assam as well. The educational achievement and work participation of women is less than men in the Dhubri district of Assam. The educational achievement and work participation gap between male and female are very high in the district of Dhubri as compared to the other districts of the state. This is mainly because of various factors such as socio-cultural background of the communities; limited access to high quality education, School environment, lack of awareness etc. The study area is populated by various communities such as Muslims, Bengalis, Rabhas, Garos, Bodos, Rajbongshis etc of which Muslims are the dominant and girls are given less preference in the Muslim society in terms of education for which there is a vast gap in the educational attainment between male and female in Dhubri district. The present study will help in reducing the inequalities, be it in education, work participation, economic upliftment etc. The objective of the study is to understand the factors of inequality between men and women in terms of educational achievement and work participation of the region and also to suggest measures to address the issue.

High Selection, Low Success: The Heterogeneous Effect of Migrants’ Access to Employment on Their Remigration

This article reconciles contrasting findings on the effect of access to employment on remigration by showing that this effect is actually heterogeneous and depends on migrants’ initial educational selection from the origin country. Combining longitudinal data from England and Wales (1971–2011) with data on educational attainment distributions in migrants’ origin countries, we find that the impact of being out of a job (unemployed or inactive) on the probability to remigrate is larger among migrants who were initially more positively selected in terms of educational attainment. This interaction effect appears stronger for male and recent migrants. Thus, in addition to migrants’ access to employment in the host country, the mismatch between migrants’ initial selection — that partly captures their premigration expectations — and their employment status at destination helps explain remigration behaviors.

Mapping disparities in education across low- and middle-income countries

Educational attainment is an important social determinant of maternal, newborn, and child health1–3. As a tool for promoting gender equity, it has gained increasing traction in popular media, international aid strategies, and global agenda-setting4–6. The global health agenda is increasingly focused on evidence of precision public health, which illustrates the subnational distribution of disease and illness7,8; however, an agenda focused on future equity must integrate comparable evidence on the distribution of social determinants of health9–11. Here we expand on the available precision SDG evidence by estimating the subnational distribution of educational attainment, including the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling, across all low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017. Previous analyses have focused on geographical disparities in average attainment across Africa or for specific countries, but—to our knowledge—no analysis has examined the subnational proportions of individuals who completed specific levels of education across all low- and middle-income countries12–14. By geolocating subnational data for more than 184 million person-years across 528 data sources, we precisely identify inequalities across geography as well as within populations.

Economic Mobility Under Pressure

AbstractBased on complete population data, with the exact same definitions of family class background and economic outcomes for a large number of birth cohorts, we examine post-war trends in intergenera-tional economic mobility in Norway. Standard summary statistics indicate stable or mildly declining rank–rank mobility for sons and sharply declining mobility for daughters. The most conspicuous trend in the mobility patterns is that men and women born into the lowest parts of the parental earnings distribution have fallen behind in terms of own earnings rank, as well as a number of other quality-of-life indicators. A considerable part of this development can be explained by changes in the class distribution of educational attainment and in its rising influence on earnings rank. We argue that although the educational revolution has diminished the role of inherited ability, it has enlarged the influence of the family as provider of a social learning environment.

Addressing education inequality in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper examines the impact of wealth inequality on education inequality in the sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, including by decomposing inequality across gender. Specifically, it analyzes the impact of wealth concentration on the distribution of educational attainment using a sample of cross-sectional data from the USAID Demographic Health Survey on 25 countries, and deploying the education inequality Gini, generalized Lorenz curve, and Lorenz concentration curve. Educational attainment and wealth index were estimated to capture education inequality and wealth concentration. The findings confirm that social exclusion has remained chronic in SSA. Apart from Zimbabwe, SSA have not only failed to raise incidence levels of secondary and tertiary education, but also have largely been unable to reduce education inequality. Regardless of oil and gas endowments, investments going to education have remained low in these countries, while gender disparity on educational attainment burdening females has been high in Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana and Guinea. With the exception of Comoros, wealth concentration is the prime cause of education inequality in the remaining countries. The findings call for effective policies for the poor and females to raise their education levels thereby enabling them to earn incomes to break the vicious cycle of education inequality caused by wealth inequality.

A century of change in global education variability and gender differences in education.

The aim of this article is to document and understand how trends in educational variability and the gender gap in education developed jointly over time. Main questions include: Is the education distribution among women becoming more dispersed as their average attainment surpasses that of men? Is education variability among women higher than that of men? Does the reduction–and eventual reversal–of the gender gap in education go hand-in-hand with less educational variability overall? To answer these questions we first show how overall education variability can be decomposed into four clearly interpretable components (variability among women and men, educational advantage favoring women and favoring men). We subsequently document how these components have evolved over time in the world and its regions from 1950 to 2010 (with projections until 2040). Our findings suggest that (i) with education expansion, education variability tends to follow an inverted U-shape trajectory. (ii) The composition of education variability has been shifting dramatically over time; in particular (iii) variability among men was usually higher than variability among women until the turn of the millennium, from then onwards their educational attainment distributions have the same degree of dispersion. And (iv) while in the 1950s the educational advantage of men was by far the main contributor to education variability, nowadays the educational advantage of women has become the most important source of variability in high- and middle-income countries.

Human capital and income inequality*

This study investigates empirically how human capital, measured by educational attainment, is related to income distribution. The regressions, using a cross-country data between 1980 and 2015, show that a more equal distribution of education contributes significantly to reducing income inequality. Educational expansion is a major factor in reducing educational inequality and thus income inequality. Social benefits spending and price stability contribute to reducing income inequality, while public education spending helps to reduce educational inequality. In contrast, higher per capita income, greater trade openness and faster technological progress tend to make both income and education distribution more unequal. The calibration of empirical results shows that we can attribute the rising income inequality within East Asian economies in recent decades to the unequalizing effects of fast income growth and rapid progress in globalization and technological change, which have surpassed the income-equalizing effects from improved equality in the distribution of educational attainment.

Educational Differences in the Prevalence of Dementia and Life Expectancy with Dementia: Changes from 2000 to 2010.

This article provides the first estimates of educational differences in age-specific prevalence, and changes in prevalence over time, of dementia by education levels in the United States. It also provides information on life expectancy, and changes in life expectancy, with dementia and cognitively healthy life for educational groups. Data on cognition from the 2000 and 2010 Health and Retirement Study are used to classify respondents as having dementia, cognitive impairment without dementia (CIND), or being cognitively intact. Vital statistics data are used to estimate life tables for education groups and the Sullivan method is used to estimate life expectancy by cognitive state. People with more education have lower prevalence of dementia, more years of cognitively healthy life, and fewer years with dementia. Years spent in good cognition increased for most sex-education groups and, conversely, years spent with dementia decreased for some. Mortality reduction was the most important factor in increasing cognitively healthy life. Change in the distribution of educational attainment has played a major role in the reduction of life with dementia in the overall population. Differences in the burden of cognitive loss by education point to the significant cost of low social status both to individuals and to society.

Human Capital and Income Inequality

We investigate empirically how human capital, measured by educational attainment, is related to income distribution. We find that the regressions, using a panel data set covering a broad range of countries between 1980 and 2015, show that a more equal distribution of education contributes significantly to reducing income inequality. Educational expansion is a major factor in reducing educational inequality and thus income inequality. Public policies that improve social benefits and price stability contribute to reducing income inequality, while public spending on education helps to reduce educational inequality. In contrast, higher per capita income, greater openness to international trade, and faster technological progress tend to make both income and education distribution more unequal. Using the calibration of empirical results, we find that we can attribute the rising income inequality within East Asian economies in recent decades to the unequalizing effects of fast income growth and rapid progress in globalization and technological change, which have surpassed the income-equalizing effects from improved equality in the distribution of educational attainment during the period.

Do better socioeconomic features of population mean more competitive regions?

The objective of the case study was to give an overview of differences between Hungarian regions from the aspect of socioeconomic factors. The paper deals with the distinct situations of NUTS 2 regions in order to get a general view of the country from that angle. Although, that approach is not the most detailed one, it makes possible to easily distinguish the competitive parts of the country. Secondary data were provided by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH) and National Territorial Development and Spatial Planning Information System (TeIR) were used to present the distribution of population by various expositions. Unemployment rate, distribution of educational attainment, population growth, rate of ageing, vitality index, dependency ratio and GDP per capita were calculated and assembled to present the differences. The results are showing clearly, that Central Hungary (HU10), Central Transdanubia (HU21), Western Transdanubia (HU22) are currently competitive. The population of Southern Transdanubia (HU23) and Southern Great Plain (HU33) are aging, but stable from the view of economy related indexes. Northern Hungary (HU31) and Northern Great Plain (HU32) are considered laggards from that aspect, but have a considerable potential because of the age structure of the population. The paper also introduces some national and EU programmes which are meant to mitigate the effects of unfavourable situations.

Education and marriage: the shift from female hypergamy to hypogamy in Belgium, a 20th century cohort analysis

One of the key social trends of the 20th century has been the expansion of participation in education. Using detailed retrospective information from the 1981 and 2001 censuses, this paper investigates how this expansion is associated with major trends in nuptiality in Belgium. We focus specifically on the changing gender balance in education and how this is related to the likelihood and timing of marriage and to patterns of educational assortative mating. Our empirical analysis shows that marriage was getting more universal, happening at an earlier age and more often heterogamous in term of education over the cohorts born in the first half of the 20th century. In younger cohorts, when women’s levels of education caught up with men’s, the age at marriage as well as the degree of homogamy increased again. Homogamy remained dominant throughout, but while women tended to marry men who were at least as highly educated as themselves until the 1950s cohorts, in more recent cohorts, women have tended to marry men who are at most as highly educated as themselves. Hypogamy is now the second most common pattern, after homogamy. Controlling for changes in the distribution of educational attainment by applying a log-linear model, we find that part of the changes in assortative mating in Belgium may be explained by changes in mate preferences regarding education. Finally, we find that hypogamous marriages tend to be contracted at later ages than homogamous or hypergamous ones.

Preschool education as a determinant of educational attainment: An analysis of Serbia

The subject of this paper is preschool education as a determinant of students? educational attainment in Serbia and factors that influence whether a Serbian child is included in preschool programmes. This paper aims 1) to assess how attendance of preschool programmes in Serbia affects a student?s educational attainment in terms of mathematical, reading, and scientific literacy; 2) to explore how preschool education differs for students who occupy different positions in the distribution of educational attainment; and 3) to examine the determinants of a child in Serbia receiving preschool education. The analysis is based on data from PISA2012 testing. In order to assess the significance and nature of the effect of preschool education on educational attainment in terms of mathematical, reading, and scientific literacy we use unconditional quantile regression. To analyse factors that affect whether a child is included in the preschool programme we apply probit regression. Unconditional quantile regression results suggest that the sign and intensity of the effect of preschool education for more than a year are positive and increasing. The results of the probit regression show that socio-economic family background and parental status in the labour market are the factors that determine whether the student will attend preschool education for more than a year. The results indicate that the educational system in Serbia reproduces poverty and social exclusion.

The black–white wage gap among young women in 1990 vs. 2011: The role of selection and educational attainment

In this paper, we compare the black–white median log wage gap for women aged 26–31 in 1990 and 2011. Two stylized facts emerge. First, the pattern of selection in the two years is similar — the gaps observed among women employed in 1990 and 2011 substantially understate the gaps that would have been observed had all 26–31 year-old women been working in those years. Second, both the median log wage gap observed in the data and the selection-corrected gap increased substantially between the two years, a fact that can be mostly attributed to changes in the distributions of educational attainment among young black and white women.

Rising inequality in Canada: A regional perspective

In almost three-quarters of OECD countries, income inequality has increased over the past three decades. Canada is among those countries experiencing the fastest growth in inequality, especially since the mid-1990s. While there is an important literature dealing with rising inequality at the national-level, much less attention has been devoted to sub-national variations in the distribution of earnings, and to the potential causes of such differences. This paper investigates recent changes in inequality across regions (i.e. defined as census divisions) in Canada. It does so using micro-data from the 20% long-form sample of the Census for the years 1996, 2001 and 2006. Exploratory spatial data analysis suggests that there are widening divides between (i) regions located in western provinces (where earnings inequality is typically high) and their eastern provinces counterparts (where inequality is low) and (ii) urban and rural regions. A multi-level model is developed to examine the factors influencing these differences in earnings inequality. Multi-level analysis recognizes the nested structure of regions within provinces and accounts for the shared policy and institutional environments experienced by regions within the same province. At the regional level, modeling results indicate that economic development, industry mix, unemployment, ethnic composition, the distribution of educational attainment and population density are consistent predictors of inequality. In contrast, the effects of age and gender profiles on regional inequality are mixed. At the provincial level, institutional factors also matter.

The effect of unemployment on household composition and doubling up.

"Doubling up" (sharing living arrangements) with family and friends is one way in which individuals and families can cope with job loss, but relatively little research has examined the extent to which people use coresidence to weather a spell of unemployment. This project uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to provide evidence on the relationship between household composition and unemployment across working ages, focusing on differences in behavior by educational attainment. Using the SIPP panels, I find that individuals who become unemployed are three times more likely to move in with other people. Moving into shared living arrangements in response to unemployment is not evenly spread across the distribution of educational attainment: it is most prevalent among individuals with less than a high school diploma and those with at least some college.

Who They Were There: Immigrants' Educational Selectivity and Their Children's Educational Attainment

This article examines the educational selectivity of immigrants in France—i.e. how their level of education contrasts with that of non-migrants in their country of birth-and the influence of this selectivity on the educational attainment of their children. I combine the Barro-Lee data set (2010) with the French TeO survey (2008-2009) to construct a measure of 'relative educational attainment', i.e. an immigrant's position in the distribution of educational attainment among the population of the same cohort and gender in the immigrant's country of birth. I demonstrate that the level of immigrants' relative educational attainment differs both between and within countries of origin. I then show the positive influence of immigrant parents' relative educational attainment on their children's educational attainment, over and above family socioeconomic status in France. The intergenerational transmission of cultural resources and subjective social status are the proposed sociological mechanisms that can account for the intergenerational effect of immigrant educational selectivity. In the study of assimilation, both the theoretical and empirical literature have tended to overlook immigrant parents' pre-migration characteristics in the explanation of their children's educational and occupational out- comes. Yet, immigrants are also emigrants (Sayad, 2004; Waldinger et al., 2012). There are therefore strong reasons to consider immigrants' characteristics in and relative to their country of origin as relevant factors in shaping their experiences and that of their descendants in the country of destination. In this article, I examine the educational selectivity of immigrants in France—i.e. how their level of education contrasts with that of comparable non-migrants in their country of birth—and the influence of this selectivity on their children's educational attainment. By combining the 2010 version of the Barro-Lee data set on educational attainment distributions around the world and the French 2008-2009 'Trajectories and Origins' survey on immigrant families (INED, 2008- 2009), I created an individual-level measure of immi- grants' relative level of educational attainment in their country of origin. This unique measure allows me to show how immigrant educational selectivity varies between, and within, countries of origin. I then assess the impact of immigrants' relative educational attain- ment on their children's educational attainment in France.

Assessing the potential impact of increased participation in higher education on mortality: Evidence from 21 European populations

Although higher education has been associated with lower mortality rates in many studies, the effect of potential improvements in educational distribution on future mortality levels is unknown. We therefore estimated the impact of projected increases in higher education on mortality in European populations. We used mortality and population data according to educational level from 21 European populations and developed counterfactual scenarios. The first scenario represented the improvement in the future distribution of educational attainment as expected on the basis of an assumption of cohort replacement. We estimated the effect of this counterfactual scenario on mortality with a 10–15-year time horizon among men and women aged 30–79 years using a specially developed tool based on population attributable fractions (PAF). We compared this with a second, upward levelling scenario in which everyone has obtained tertiary education. The reduction of mortality in the cohort replacement scenario ranged from 1.9 to 10.1% for men and from 1.7 to 9.0% for women. The reduction of mortality in the upward levelling scenario ranged from 22.0 to 57.0% for men and from 9.6 to 50.0% for women. The cohort replacement scenario was estimated to achieve only part (4–25% (men) and 10–31% (women)) of the potential mortality decrease seen in the upward levelling scenario. We concluded that the effect of on-going improvements in educational attainment on average mortality in the population differs across Europe, and can be substantial. Further investments in education may have important positive side-effects on population health.

The Geo-Spatial Distribution of Educational Attainment: Cultural Capital and Uneven Development in Metropolitan Kansas City, 1960-1980

This article explores historical evidence of spatial inequality in a particular metropolitan setting, focusing on adult education. Variation in collegiate education is interpreted in light of Bourdieu’s conception of cultural capital. Using census tract data, OLS regression suggests that education levels were moderately independent of other social characteristics in both 1960 and 1980. Historically, distinct “education zones” or districts took shape before conflict over desegregation erupted. We also examine differences in student attainment with individual-level data, and consider the question of peer influences on educational success. Altogether, we suggest that education became an important dimension of geospatial inequality in metropolitan life, rather independently of controversies over race and “white flight.”