Household wealth and years of education

At the national level, a country's wealth (measured by GDP per capita) and the education of its population (measured by school life expectancy) are highly correlated, as demonstrated in an article on national wealth and years of education. In developed countries with a high level of national income the population usually has more years of education than the population of low income countries.

A similar link can be observed at the level of individual households. Households whose members have a higher level of education are usually wealthier than households with less educated members. The relationship between household wealth and education can be analyzed with data from household surveys. This article looks at data from 12 nationally representative household surveys that were conducted between 2004 and 2006 in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Moldova, Nepal, Niger, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe. The data from Bangladesh and Sierra Leone is from Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and the data from the other countries was collected with Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).

DHS and MICS surveys collect data on assets owned by a household - for example, water supply and sanitation facilities, housing material, radio, telephone, refrigerator, bicycle, automobile, and livestock - that can be used to construct an index of household wealth (Filmer and Pritchett 2001). With this index it is possible to rank the households in a survey from poorest to richest. The households can then be divided into wealth deciles, each containing 10 percent of the sample population.

DHS and MICS surveys also collect data on the education of all household members above a certain age, usually 5 to 7 years. For the analysis in this article, the years of formal education of all household members aged 20 to 65 years were examined. For example, a person that did not complete primary school may have 3 years of education while someone with a university degree may have 16 years of education. In the next step, the average number of years of education within each wealth decile is calculated.

The data on household wealth and years of education is plotted in the graph below. Wealth deciles are plotted along the horizontal axis. The average number of years of education of persons aged 20 to 65 years in each wealth decile is plotted along the vertical axis. As an example, in Bangladesh, persons in the poorest decile have 1.3 years of education on average and persons in the richest decile have 10.1 years of education.

Household wealth and years of education

Data source: Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), 2004-2006.

The graph shows that an increase in the average years of education of all adult household members is correlated with an increase in household wealth. This relationship is true without exception in all 12 countries that were analyzed. Persons in higher wealth deciles always have more years of education than persons in lower deciles.

The graph also shows that the disparity between poorer and richer households in terms of education varies from country to country. In Moldova, almost everyone attends primary and secondary school and even in the poorest decile the average number of years of education is 9.3, compared to 13.6 years of education in the richest decile. In Zimbabwe, most persons attended at least primary school; persons in the poorest decile have 5.4 years of education on average and persons in the richest decile 11.4 years.

In contrast, Niger is a country where few persons between 20 and 65 years of age attended school. 80 percent of the population have less than 1 year of education. The average number of years of education is 0.3 in the poorest decile, 0.9 in the eighth decile, 1.8 in the ninth decile, and 5.3 in the richest decile. In Ethiopia, 80 percent of the adult population have fewer than 2 years of education and in Sierra Leone, 70 percent have fewer than 2 years of education. Cambodia and Nepal are also countries where a large part of the population has relatively little formal education.

In other countries, the increase in the number of years of education from poorer to richer deciles is more pronounced. In Egypt, persons in the poorest decile have 3.1 years of education on average and those in the richest decile have 13.8 years of education. In India, the average number of years of education is 1.4 in the poorest decile and 11.9 in the richest decile. In Haiti, the respective numbers are 1.2 and 10.7 years of education. In Colombia, the average number of years of education ranges from 3.6 in the poorest decile to 12.5 in the richest decile.

The positive link between wealth and years of education at the household level can be explained similarly to the link between these two variables at the national level. Persons with a higher level of education can earn more than those with less education. At the same time, members of wealthier households can afford education more easily than members of poorer households. At the extreme end, very poor families may not only lack the financial resources to send their children to school, they may also have to rely on the income from child labor to guarantee the survival of everyone in the household. This relationship between household wealth and child labor was analyzed in two articles on child labor and school attendance in Bolivia.

Reference

• Filmer, Deon, and Lant H. Pritchett. 2001. Estimating wealth effects without expenditure data - or Tears: An application to educational enrollments in states of India. Demography 38 (1), February: 115-132.

Related articles

• National wealth and years of education
• National wealth and school enrollment
• Poverty and educational attainment in the United States
• Poverty and educational attainment in the United States, part 2
  
• Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia
• Child labor and school attendance in Bolivia, part 2

External links

• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
• Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)

Friedrich Huebler, 24 August 2008, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/08/hh-wealth.html

National wealth and years of education

A country's national wealth and the education of its population are highly correlated. In developed countries with a high level of national income the population usually has more years of education than the population of low income countries. Countries with a highly educated work force can achieve higher economic growth rates and at the same time wealthy countries have the financial resources to invest more in education.

The relationship between national wealth and years of education can be illustrated with a comparison of national data on school life expectancy (SLE) and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. The school life expectancy is the average number of years a child of school entrance age is expected to spend in primary, secondary or tertiary education. GDP per capita is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country, divided by its population.

The graph below plots the school life expectancy against GDP per capita in 2006, the year with the most recent data. The GDP data was adjusted with purchasing power parities (PPP) to account for differences in the price levels between countries. To emphasize the shape of the relationship with school life expectancy the GDP data is plotted on a logarithmic scale. In total, data for 175 countries was available. Each country is identified by a marker that indicates the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) region in which it is located.

The graph clearly demonstrates that GDP per capita is positively correlated with school life expectancy. The upper right corner of the graph is populated mainly by developed countries with a high GDP per capita and a long school life expectancy. The countries with the highest school life expectancy are Australia (SLE 20.5 years, GDP per capita $35,500), New Zealand (SLE 19.5 years, GDP per capita $25,500), and Iceland (SLE 18.2 years, GDP per capita $36,900). The countries with the lowest school life expectancy are Angola (SLE 3.7 years, GDP per capita $4,400), Niger (SLE 3.9 years, GDP per capita $630), and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (SLE 4.3 years, GDP per capita $280). The Democratic Republic of the Congo has the lowest GDP per capita of all countries with data.

GDP per capita and school life expectancy, 2006

Data sources: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, World Bank, UN Population Division.

The following table lists the average school life expectancy, the average GDP per capita, and the total population in each MDG region and for the world as a whole. At the global level, the average school life expectancy is 11.5 years and the average GDP per capita is $9,300. Developed countries have the highest school life expectancy (15.8 years) and the highest GDP per capita ($33,500). Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (the former Soviet Union) also have a high school life expectancy (13.5 years and 13.4 years, respectively) but at lower levels of GDP per capita ($9,100 and $9,400).

In Northern Africa, the average school life expectancy is 12.2 years, with a GDP per capita around $5,400. In Eastern Asia, South-Eastern Asia, Oceania, and Western Asia, the school life expectancy ranges from 11 to 11.4 years. Western Asia, which includes the oil-rich countries of the Middle East, is the region with the second highest GDP per capita ($11,400) but school life expectancy is the third lowest of all ten MDG regions. Southern Asia has the second lowest school life expectancy with 9.6 years and an average GDP per capita of $2,600. The lowest school life expectancy is observed in Sub-Saharan Africa (7.7 years) and this region also has the lowest GDP per capita ($1,800).

MDG regions: school life expectancy, GDP per capita, and total population, 2006

MDG region	School life expectancy (years)	GDP per capita, PPP (current international $)	Total population (1,000)
Developed countries	15.8	33,508	1,015,487
Commonwealth of Independent States	13.4	9,371	278,295
Eastern Asia	11.4	5,471	1,402,837
South-Eastern Asia	11.3	4,190	565,105
Oceania	11.4	2,323	8,804
Southern Asia	9.6	2,649	1,612,841
Western Asia	11.0	11,394	200,205
Northern Africa	12.2	5,433	155,086
Sub-Saharan Africa	7.7	1,818	788,122
Latin America and the Caribbean	13.5	9,109	564,732
World	11.5	9,262	6,591,513

Data sources: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, World Bank, UN Population Division. Regional averages are weighted by each country's total population.

A related article on this site analyzes the link between national wealth and school enrollment at the primary and secondary level of education. Countries with a high GDP per capita usually have higher net enrollment rates than countries with a low GDP per capita. This relationship is particularly strong at the secondary level of education. Two articles on poverty and educational attainment in the United States examine poverty rates and high school graduation rates in the 50 U.S. states.

Data sources

• School life expectancy: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre, May 2008
• GDP per capita: World Bank, World Development Indicators Online, July 2008
• Population: UN Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision, March 2007

Related articles

• Household wealth and years of education
• National wealth and school enrollment
• Poverty and educational attainment in the United States
• Poverty and educational attainment in the United States, part 2
  
• Millennium Development Goal regions and UNICEF regions

External links

• Gross domestic product (Wikipedia article)
• School life expectancy (definition by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics)
• Purchasing power parity (Wikipedia article)
• Logarithmic scale (Wikipedia article)
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics
• World Bank
• UN Population Division
• UN Millennium Development Goals

Friedrich Huebler, 3 August 2008 (edited 28 August 2008), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/08/wealth.html

A view inside primary schools

A new publication by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, A view inside primary schools: A World Education Indicators (WEI) cross-national study, presents new data on quality and equality in primary education. The data is from 11 countries in Asia, Latin America, and North Africa that participated in the Survey of Primary Schools by the World Education Indicators Programme in 2005 and 2006. For the survey, fourth grade teachers and principals from over 7,600 schools responded to questions about teaching and learning conditions.

The countries in the study - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, India, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Uruguay - are close to the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education. However, the survey reveals large resource gaps between schools in urban and rural areas. Children in poorly equipped and maintained schools often come from poor families and these children are thus doubly disadvantaged.

Other findings of the survey include:

• In Paraguay, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka, more than one in five pupils attended schools without running water.
• In India, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia, less than half of all pupils were in schools with a telephone.
• Sri Lanka was the only country participating in the survey that provided free textbooks to virtually all pupils.
• The overall weekly teaching load for Grade 4 teachers working in only one school ranged from 14 hours in Malaysia to 31 hours in Chile and the Philippines. The average teaching load was 23 hours per week.
• In all countries in the survey - except in India, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka - most teachers expressed low levels of satisfaction with their salaries.

The full report, with detailed tables and figures, is available for download at the UIS website.

External links

• Download A view inside primary schools (PDF document, 2.9 MB)
• Press release by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
• UN Millennium Development Goals

Related articles

• UNESCO releases data from 2007 education survey
• Pupil/teacher ratio in primary school
• EFA Global Monitoring Report 2008
  
• Global Education Digest 2007

Friedrich Huebler, 27 July 2008 (edited 26 October 2008), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/07/primary-schools.html

Updates to two Stata guides

A new section on troubleshooting was added to the guide to integrating Stata and external text editors. The guide describes a set of programs that can be used to run Stata commands from an external text editor. The installation of these programs is straightforward and users should not encounter any problems if the installation instructions are followed exactly. In case the programs do not work, the new section offers simple steps to track down the source of the problem. The guide to reading Statalist with Gmail was also updated to include information on a new "fixed width font" feature of Gmail.

Friedrich Huebler, 22 June 2008, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/06/stata-guides.html

Adult literacy in 2007

The release of new literacy data by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) in May 2008 provides an opportunity to update an article on adult literacy rates that was published on this site in July 2007. The adult literacy rate is the share of literate persons in the population aged 15 years and older. Compared to the previous analysis, literacy data for more countries and for more recent years is available. An article on literacy data from the UIS provides additional information on the latest UIS database.

Before the update of May, the UIS database contained adult literacy rates for 136 countries and territories. For 10 countries, the most recent data was from 2005, for 30 countries from 2004, and for 5 countries from 2003. The remaining countries had data from 2002 or earlier years.

The UIS Data Centre now offers the adult literacy rate for 145 countries and territories. For 115 countries, data from 2007 is available. The map below displays the adult literacy rate for all countries with data.

Adult literacy rates by country, 2007

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre, May 2008

The unweighted mean of the adult literacy rate is 81.2 percent. In 71 countries - including most of Eastern Europe, East and Southeast Asia, and Latin America - 90 percent or more of the adult population can read and write. The highest adult literacy rate, 99.8 percent, is reported for Cuba, Estonia and Latvia. Most countries without data are in the group of industrialized countries, where literacy rates are also likely to be above 90 percent. In 23 countries, the adult literacy rate is between 80 and 90 percent.

At the other extreme are eight countries with literacy rates below 40 percent: Mali (23.3), Chad (25.7), Afghanistan (28.0), Burkina Faso (28.7), Guinea (29.5), Niger (30.4), Ethiopia (35.9), and Sierra Leone (38.1). Another 16 countries have literacy rates between 40 and 60 percent: Benin (40.5), Senegal (42.6), Mozambique (44.4), Central African Republic (48.6), Cote d'Ivoire (48.7), Togo (53.2), Bangladesh (53.5), Pakistan (54.9), Liberia (55.5), Morocco (55.6), Bhutan (55.6), Mauritania (55.8), Nepal (56.5), Papua New Guinea (57.8), Yemen (58.9), and Burundi (59.3). Almost all of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Finally, the world's two largest countries in terms of population have very different literacy rates. In China, the adult literacy rate is 93.3 percent. In India, only 66 percent of the adult population can read and write.

The complete dataset with adult and youth literacy rates is available at the UIS Data Centre.

Related articles

• Literacy data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
  
• UNESCO releases data from 2007 education survey
• Adult literacy rates (article of July 2007)
• Youth literacy rates (article of July 2007)
• Disparity between adult and youth literacy
• Disparity between male and female literacy rates
• Adult literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa

External links

• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
• UIS Data Centre

Friedrich Huebler, 15 June 2008, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/06/adult-literacy.html

Literacy data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics

In May 2008, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) added new literacy data for many countries to its database at the UIS Data Centre. In total, 208 countries and territories are covered by the database. The adult literacy rate - the share of the population aged 15 years and above that can read and write - is available for 145 countries. For 115 countries, the most recent literacy data is from 2007. Historical data is also provided, going back as far as 1975, to allow the analysis of national trends in literacy.

The previous UIS database from 2007 listed the adult literacy rates for 136 countries and territories for years between 1985 and 2005. For 10 countries, the most recent data was from 2005, for 30 countries from 2004, and for 5 countries from 2003.

The graph below describes the availability of data on adult literacy in the UIS database as of late May 2008.

• The blue bars indicate the number of countries with data on adult literacy per year between 1975 and 2007. For each country, the adult literacy rate may be available in more than one year. The number of countries with data from a particular year is shown at the bottom of the bars, along the horizontal axis. For example, 115 countries have literacy data from 2007 and 36 countries have data from 2000.
• The brown bars show the number of countries with adult literacy rates from the current year or the previous 4 years. For example, the bar for the year 2007 indicates that 117 countries have literacy data from any year between 2003 and 2007.
• The beige bars show the cumulative number of countries with literacy data from any year since 1975. For example, in 2007, the adult literacy rate is available for a total of 145 countries and territories. The difference between the beige and brown bars in 2007 is the number of countries with the most recent literacy data from a year before 2003. The difference between the beige and blue bars in 2007 is the number of countries with the most recent data from a year before 2007.

Data on adult literacy from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 1975-2007

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre, May 2008

Related articles

• UNESCO releases data from 2007 education survey
• Adult literacy rates
• Youth literacy rates
• Disparity between adult and youth literacy
• Disparity between male and female literacy rates
• Adult literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa

External links

• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
• UIS Data Centre

Friedrich Huebler, 1 June 2008, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/06/uis-literacy.html

UNESCO releases data from 2007 education survey

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) has released the data from its latest survey of international education indicators, conducted in 2007. The UIS Data Centre offers annual data for 208 countries and territories from the years 1999 to 2007. The previous survey had data for 207 countries and territories but starting in 2008, Serbia and Montenegro are listed separately, after both countries had declared their independence in 2006.

The graph below presents the distribution of the latest UIS data for two official Millennium Development Goal indicators, the primary school net enrollment rate (NER) and the survival rate to the last grade of primary school.

The primary NER is available for 178 countries. In 121 countries, the latest data is from 2006. For 10 countries - Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kazakhstan, Marshall Islands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia, South Korea, and Vanuatu - the primary NER in 2007 is available.

The survival rate to the last grade of primary school is available for 157 countries. To calculate this indicator, data from two consecutive years is needed. For this reason, the latest available data for 88 of the 157 countries is from 2005. For 6 countries - Egypt, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Sao Tome and Principe, South Korea, and Tanzania - the survival rate for 2006 is provided in the UIS database.

Distribution of latest national data from UIS education survey 2007

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre, May 2008

Related articles

• UNESCO releases data from 2006 education survey
• Final release of data from UNESCO's 2005 education survey
• Pupil/teacher ratio in primary school
• Global Education Digest 2007
• Global Education Digest 2006
• Global Education Digest 2005

External links

• UIS announcement of data from 2007 education survey
• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
• UIS Data Centre
• UN Millennium Development Goals

Friedrich Huebler, 18 May 2008 (edited 26 October 2008), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/05/uis.html