Educational Expansion and Schooling Inequality: International Evidence and Some Implications
Abstract
Fairly recent data for about one hundred countries indicate that as the average level of schooling increases, educational inequality first increases and, after reaching a peak, starts declining in later phases of educational expansion. The turning point occurs when average schooling is about seven years. The observed empirical generalization, which seems quite robust, appears to have important implications for educational and distributional policies and for research on the linkage between education and income inequality. Copyright 1990 by MIT Press.
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The choice of inequality measure matters, as educational expansions are associated with systematic changes in both the average level and variance of schooling, which affects some inequality measures more than others.
“The choice of inequality measure matters, as educational expansions are associated with systematic changes in both the average level and variance of schooling (Ram 1990), which affects some inequality measures more than others.”
From Educational Inequality* (2022) · cites this paper as Ram 1990
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EDUCATION AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE REGIONS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION*
Rodríguez‐Pose, A., & Tselios, V. (2009) · Journal of Regional Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9787.2008.00602.x · Cited by 238 · see citing works
Blanden, J., Doepke, M., & Stuhler, J. (2022) · National Bureau of Economic Research · doi:10.3386/w29979 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
“Ramey and Ramey (2010) cite competition for college admission as one reason for the widening disparity in parenting investments observed in the United States. Notably, few offered slots at top universities can be artificial, in that they may reflect a strategic choice on the part of the institution rather than true sc…”
BackgroundResultInfluential
- Authors
- Ram, R.
- Corresponding author
- Ram, Rati
- ORCID
- Ram, Rati
- Venue
- The Review of Economics and Statistics
- Publisher
- JSTOR
- Published
- 1990-05
- Volume
- 72
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 266
- ISSN
- 0034-6535 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2016597875
- Cited by
- 192
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 9 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 6.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- The Review of Economics and Statistics (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Income, Poverty, and Inequality
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
- Keywords
- educational expansion, educational inequality, average years of schooling, income inequality, education and income, distributional policy, cross-national comparison
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