Beside its sheer indicator of social imbalances within a population, gender inequality in education has been found to be a factor aff ecting economic growth and labor produc- tivity (Klasen 2002, Knowles et al. 2002, Coulombe and Tremblay 2006) by lowering levels of human capital. Th e absence of a gender gap in the literacy levels of the devel- oping countries in the Pacifi c Rim can be attributed to the huge improvements in the female level of educational attainment during the past 40 years. A lot of information can be gained from measuring the gap between men and women in terms of educational attainment, as shown in Figure 6.3 . First of all there is a contrast between 1970, where women of working age were far behind men, to 2010, where one can measure the extent of the catching up that was achieved in terms of levels of intake and school life expec- tancy in primary education during that period. In 1970, if about one-fi ft h of the men in the region had not received any education, one-third of the women were deprived of any
Cambodia China
Guatemala
−0.10 0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50
2010
Hong Kong SAR Macao SAR Cambodia Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Ecuador El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Indonesia Malaysia Mexico Panama Peru Philippines Republic of Korea Singapore Thailand Viet Nam 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Percentage point
Year
FIGURE 6.3 Gender gap in proportional terms with no education in population 20–64 (calcu- lated as share of women minus share of men)
Source: Adapted from Lutz et al. 2007 and K.C. et al. 2010.
education. In 2010, even if women with no education were still twice more numerous than men with no education, nevertheless, the share of women with no education had fallen to 6 percent of the working-age population in 2010. Th is achievement concerns all countries of the Pacifi c Rim under study except for a few, especially Cambodia and Guatemala.
Progress was obvious at the level of lower secondary education: From 1995, there were more women with at least a lower secondary education than with a primary education or less—that particular threshold was already achieved in 1980 by men (in Figure 6.4). Th e increase was steep but went more or less in parallel for both sexes so that the gender gap was not removed. A closer look shows that in fact the gap was the largest in 1985 and has been declining, slowly, ever since. Th e diff erence in 2010 is about 7 percent points. Th ere again, the situation varies quite strongly between countries as can be seen from Figure 6.5a . Th e share of women with a lower second- ary education and above is almost universal (above 80 percent) for half of the women in the Pacifi c Rim, mostly living in OECD countries. Actually only 3 percent of all women in the region lives in a country where the majority of women have less than a secondary education, and that in a mix of Central American and Southeast Asian countries.
If progress was evident at the secondary level, it is less the case at the tertiary level, but surprisingly there, the women were able to close the gap with men, as the proportion in 2010 is 15 percent for both the male and female working-age population, increasing respectively from 7 percent and 4 percent in 1970. Th e absence of a gender gap at the
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
Women with a lower secondary education and more
Men with a lower secondary education and more
Women with a tertiary education
Men with a tertiary education
Share
Year
FIGURE 6.4 Proportion in the Pacifi c Rim of men and women aged 20–64 with a lower second- ary education and more and with a tertiary education, 1970–2010
Source: Calculated from Lutz et al. 2007 and K.C. et al. 2010.
HUMAN CAPITAL TRENDS 155
tertiary level is an indication that the bottleneck that handicaps girls rather than boys in their access to education is at the lower level and particularly at the primary level.
Th e heterogeneity among countries is even more obvious at that level of attainment, as can be seen from Figure 6.5b , where women with a tertiary education were actually representing more than 30 percent of the working-age population in 2010. In six out of those eight countries, the percentage of women with a tertiary education is actually higher than that of men. For example, in Canada, 45 percent of women have a tertiary education compared to 38 percent of men. Th e United States and Russia are not in the high performer group and have a proportion of women with a tertiary education below 30 percent, although, as observed before, women there are more numerous. Th e reverse gender gap observed in many countries of the Pacifi c Rim is not a unique phenomenon, as it is occurring through much of the industrialized world. A study of the United States (Diprete and Buchmann 2006) shows that between 1964 and 2002, women experienced greater returns to higher education than men, not only in the labor market but also in the form of “a higher probability of marriage, a higher standard of living, and insurance against poverty” (p. 18). It does not seem to be the case in countries where tertiary edu- cation is not well spread but there again the gap is surprisingly not very large, less than 3 percent points.
(a) (b)
33%
53%
11%
3%
More than 80%: Japan, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore 60– 80%: Peru, Malaysia, China, Chile, Philippines, Macao, Panama
50–60%: Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Indonesia, Ecuador, Nicaragua
Less than 50%: Costa Rica, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Guatemala, Honduras
14%
18%
57%
11%
More than 30%: Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Philippines,Chile 20-30%: USA, Russia, Panama, Hong Kong, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia
10-20%: Thailand, Nicaragua, Malaysia, El Salvador, Peru, Mexico, Macao, Indonesia Less than 10%: Honduras, Guatemala, China, Vietnam, Cambodia
FIGURE 6.5 Pacific Rim country mapping of the proportion in 2010 of women in the 20–64 population with a lower secondary education and more (a), and with a tertiary education (b).