Measuring education inequality in the Philippines

Abstract

This paper measures the degree of education inequality in the Philippines. It generates the average years of schooling (AYS) and education Gini coefficients of the Philippines as a whole, and all its regions and provinces to examine the economically active population’s level of educational attainment and the distribution of education. The paper finds that although inequality in educational attainment declined from 1960 to 2000, there are wide discrepancies in the educational performance of regions and provinces. Using decomposition analysis, it finds that poor provinces have greater education inequality than nonpoor provinces. It also finds that at the national level, women are facing a more equitable distribution of education than males. The regional and provincial data show that the education Gini index is negatively associated with the average years of schooling and gross domestic regional product, but positively associated with the income Gini index, poverty incidence, and poverty gap.

JEL classification: D63, I121, I32