Quantification of Educational Inequality through the Application of Gini Coefficient in Educational Indices

Education inevitably plays a significant role in the development of a country. Most studies assessing the level of education either quantitatively or qualitatively have dealt with the average of the state-wide level of education. Though, just as important as the average level is the inequality of education for it is likely to transcend directly to the economic inequality of a society. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the means and importance of observing inequality of educational level within a country. The paper adopts a method proposed by Hojo (2009) and Thomas, Wang, and Fan (2001), Gini coefficient of education. Using this method, it quantified the inequality level of educational attainment and observed its historical progression in Japan, Korea, and the US. Then a comparison was made between the Gini index and the mean years of schooling in order to examine the difference in their progression. It differs from previous papers in that it did not only argue the importance of focusing on educational inequality but also discussed its nature and relation to another more prevalent educational index. Furthermore, it also compared the results of the Gini coefficient in order to assess its validity. As a result, it found that firstly, whilst mean years of schooling increased monotonically in all three countries, the progression of educational inequality varied. Secondly, it also found that there was a large discrepancy in the Gini coefficient of Korea and the US, despite both countries having the majority of their population concentrated at a certain educational level. There are two important implications found from our study. Firstly, it found that increase in the population’s acquired years of schooling does not always mitigate inequality, but in fact, could also lead to a rise in the inequality level. An improved result in mean years of schooling could also reflect a situation where the schooling years were accumulated at tertiary education for a limited portion of the population. Secondly, it also found that such case is more viable in societies with a higher level of mean years of schooling. We conclude that the empirical analysis of our paper demonstrates that there is importance in observing the educational inequality when discussing the educational attainment as part of social development. The variable has the ability to present an aspect that is not necessarily portrayed by the other prevalent indices of the domain, especially when comparing societies at different development levels. There are two main directions to be explored in future research. First, the enlargement of the sample geographically and chronologically; second, the identification of the conditions in which application of the Gini coefficient is appropriate.