1489. Educational Attainment in Developing Countries: New Estimates and Projections Disaggregated by Gender
Vinod Ahuja and Deon Filmer
(July 1995)
Expectations are that educational attainment will grow most in the Middle
East and North Africa and least in Sub-Saharan Africa. It should improve greatly
in South Asia, where the level of attainment is lowest. The gender gap in
education may have risen in the past decade. This trend will continue unless
countries intensify their efforts to educate girls.
Ahuja and Filmer present new estimates of educational attainment in 71
developing countries for the years 1985, 1990, and 1995. They also project levels
of educational attainment through the year 2020 by using the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's projections of enrollment
and the International Labour Organization's projections of population by age and
sex.
The projections suggest interesting trends:
- Growth of stock in human capital is expected to be highest in the Middle East
and North Africa and lowest in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- South Asia---currently the least educated part of the world---is expected to
substantially augment its stock of human capital by the year 2020.
- In most regions, enrollment levels are expected to remain lower for girls
than for boys.
- The gender gap in education may have risen in the past decade. This trend
toward a widening of the gender gap may continue unless countries intensify their
efforts to educate girls.
This paper---a product of the Office of the Vice President, Development
Economics---was prepared as a background paper for World Development Report 1995
on labor. Copies of this paper are available free from the World Bank, 1818 H
Street NW, Washington, DC 20433. Please contact Michael Geller, room T7-079,
telephone 202-473-1393, fax 202-676-0652, Internet address mgeller@worldbank.org
(23 pages).
The full report is available on our FTP server.