Global Patterns of Education Inequality by Gender and Rural/Urban Residence

Annababette Wils, Population-Environment Research Network (PERN) and Tellus Institute

The international comparison in this paper shows that within the enormous diversity of national education experience, there are important, common patterns. First, the transition from no schooling to practically universal adult primary school achievement takes most countries about 60-80 years; no country has achieved this transition in less than 50 years. Second, boys start schooling before girls, causing an education gender gap but, it appears without exception, females later catch up to males. The gender gap is largest in the middle of the transition. Third, the same pattern holds for urban-rural education differentials. The latter two results imply that education inequalities are the effect of lags rather than persistent differences, and that the large education inequalities characterizing many Asian and African countries today will disappear as education becomes more universal. The paper identifies which countries exhibit large male-female and urban-rural education gaps, and which manage to have only small gaps.