An analysis of relationship between education and inequality across countries: Evaluating indicators using data from the United Nations Development Program

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Ameneh Seddighian 1
Masoud Salmani Bidgoli 2
1 Institute of Social and Cultural Studies
2 Shahid Beheshti University
10.52547/irphe.28.3.173
Abstract
The purpose of this article was to investigate the relationship between education and inequality in countries. Only the relationship between these two variables were considered and the mechanism and its effects was not studied. This research was based on quantitative comparative method between countries. United Nations Development Program data in 2015 related to 5 education indicators including adult literacy rate, expected years of education, average years of education, population with at least secondary education, and inequality in education, and 3 inequality indices including income inequality, gender inequality and human inequality were analyzed. A total of 173 countries were examined. Cluster analysis categorized countries in five education indicators including four profiles of poor, medium, good, and very good education. It also clustered them into three inequality indicators such as four profiles of high, medium, low, and very low inequality. The regression analysis also showed that five education indicators explain 9% of the variance of income inequality, 77% of the variance of gender inequality, and 79% of the variance of human inequality.

Keywords

Subjects

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  • Receive Date 29 April 2021
  • Revise Date 16 March 2022
  • Accept Date 07 February 2022
  • Publish Date 22 November 2022