This book constructs a measure of education inequality using time-series cross-national data and utilizes real-world examples based on author interviews. It provides insights into how classic trade theory might be applied more broadly to generate expectations not only about income distribution, but also about investment in human capital. The project explores the ways in which global trends toward urbanization and democratization might be expected to impact education inequality. The author addresses contemporary issues in politics, such as growing income inequality, the backlash against globalization and free trade, and concerns that democratic institutions are elite-dominated and unresponsive to the needs of common citizens.

Equal access to education is a basic human right. But in many countries gaps in education between various groups are staggering. An education Gini index -- a new indicator for the distribution of human capital and welfare -- facilitates comparison of education inequality across countries and over time.

Inequality in Education: Comparative and International Perspectives is a compilation of conceptual chapters and national case studies that includes a series of methods for measuring education inequalities. The book provides up-to-date scholarly research on global trends in the distribution of formal schooling in national populations. It also offers a strategic comparative and international education policy statement on recent shifts in education inequality, and new approaches to explore, develop and improve comparative education and policy research globally. Contributing authors examine how education as a process interacts with government finance policy to form patterns of access to education services. In addition to case perspectives from 18 countries across six geographic regions, the volume includes six conceptual chapters on topics that influence education inequality, such as gender, disability, language and economics, and a summary chapter that presents new evidence on the pernicious consequences of inequality in the distribution of education. The book offers (1) a better and more holistic understanding of ways to measure education inequalities; and (2) strategies for facing the challenge of inequality in education in the processes of policy formation, planning and implementation at the local, regional, national and global levels.

Equal access to education is a basic human right. But in many countries gaps in education between various groups are staggering. An education Gini index - a new indicator for the distribution of human capital and welfare - facilitates comparison of education inequality across countries and over time. Thomas, Wang, and Fan use a Gini index to measure inequality in educational attainment. They present two methods (direct and indirect) for calculating an education Gini index and generate a quinquennial data set on education Gini indexes for the over-15 population in 85 countries (1960-90). Preliminary empirical analysis suggests that: ʼn Inequality in education in most of the countries declined over the three decades, with a few exceptions. ʼn Inequality in education as measured by the education Gini index is negatively associated with average years of schooling, implying that countries with higher educational attainment are more likely to achieve equality in education than those with lower attainment. ʼn A clear pattern of an education Kuznets curve exists if the standard deviation of education is used. ʼn Gender gaps are clearly related to education inequality, and over time, the association between gender gaps and inequality becomes stronger. ʼn Increases in per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power parity) seem to be negatively associated with education inequality and positively related to the labor force's average years of schooling, after controlling for initial income levels. This paper - a joint product of the Office of the Vice President and the Economic Policy and Poverty Reduction Division, World Bank Institute - is an extension of the paper "Measuring Educational Inequality: Education Gini Index from 1960 to 1990" (Vinod Thomas, Yan Wang, and Xibo Fan, World Bank, Washington, DC). This study was funded by the Bank's Research Support Budget under the research project "The Quality of Growth" (RPO 682-02).

Every year, the World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR) features a topic of central importance to global development. The 2018 WDR—LEARNING to Realize Education’s Promise—is the first ever devoted entirely to education. And the time is right: education has long been critical to human welfare, but it is even more so in a time of rapid economic and social change. The best way to equip children and youth for the future is to make their learning the center of all efforts to promote education. The 2018 WDR explores four main themes: First, education’s promise: education is a powerful instrument for eradicating poverty and promoting shared prosperity, but fulfilling its potential requires better policies—both within and outside the education system. Second, the need to shine a light on learning: despite gains in access to education, recent learning assessments reveal that many young people around the world, especially those who are poor or marginalized, are leaving school unequipped with even the foundational skills they need for life. At the same time, internationally comparable learning assessments show that skills in many middle-income countries lag far behind what those countries aspire to. And too often these shortcomings are hidden—so as a first step to tackling this learning crisis, it is essential to shine a light on it by assessing student learning better. Third, how to make schools work for all learners: research on areas such as brain science, pedagogical innovations, and school management has identified interventions that promote learning by ensuring that learners are prepared, teachers are both skilled and motivated, and other inputs support the teacher-learner relationship. Fourth, how to make systems work for learning: achieving learning throughout an education system requires more than just scaling up effective interventions. Countries must also overcome technical and political barriers by deploying salient metrics for mobilizing actors and tracking progress, building coalitions for learning, and taking an adaptive approach to reform.

Rev. ed. of: PISA 2003 data analysis manual. SPSS users. c2005.

This paper presents new results on the relationship between education expansion and income inequality. While human capital theory suggests that income inequality increases with inequality of education outcomes, the expected relationship between income inequality and the level of education is ambiguous. Consistent with these theoretical priors, when dynamic panel estimation techniques are used to address issues of persistence and endogeneity we find a large, positive, statistically significant and stable relationship between education inequality and income inequality, especially in emerging and developing economies and among older age cohorts. The relationship between income inequality and education levels is positive but small and not always statistically significant, but we find a statistically significant negative relationship with schooling levels of younger cohorts. Statistical tests indicate that our dynamic estimators are consistent and that our identifying instruments are valid. Policy simulations suggest that education expansion will continue to be inequality reducing but that this role will diminish as countries develop.