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Ethnic and racial disparities in children's education: Comparative evidence from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Viet Nam

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  • Arouri, Mohamed
  • Ben-Youssef, Adel
  • Nguyen, Cuong Viet

Abstract

We investigate whether there are racial and ethnic disparities in children's education in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Viet Nam. We find that in all the four countries, and especially in Viet Nam, children from small ethnic groups have lower education attainment and cognitive ability. The gap in educational attainment and cognitive ability among ethnic children is larger than the gap in school enrolment, and the gap tends to be wider for older children. Using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, we find that the main contribution to the gap in education between children from small ethnic groups and large ethnic groups in India, Peru and Viet Nam is the difference in endowments (i.e., characteristics of children and their families) rather than the difference in the coefficients of endowments. However, in Ethiopia, the difference in the coefficients contributes more than the difference in endowments to the gap in education. Child health, parental education, household expenditure and an urban environment are important variables for explaining the gap in education between children from small and large ethnic groups.

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  • Arouri, Mohamed & Ben-Youssef, Adel & Nguyen, Cuong Viet, 2019. "Ethnic and racial disparities in children's education: Comparative evidence from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Viet Nam," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 503-514.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:100:y:2019:i:c:p:503-514
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.03.031
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    3. Pham, Trinh, 2022. "The child education and health ethnic inequality consequences of climate shocks in Vietnam," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    4. Tomoki Fujii & Maki Nakajima & Sijia Xu, 2023. "Teaching in the right context: Textbook supply program, language, and learning," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 797-824, May.
    5. Oscar Flores-Flores & Ruth Bell & Rodney Reynolds & Antonio Bernabé-Ortiz, 2018. "Older adults with disability in extreme poverty in Peru: How is their access to health care?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(12), pages 1-15, December.
    6. Bui, Tuan Anh & Nguyen, Cuong Viet & Nguyen, Khuong Duc & Nguyen, Ha Hong & Pham, Phuong Thu, 2020. "The effect of tuition fee reduction and education subsidy on school enrollment: Evidence from Vietnam," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    7. Gupta, Isha, 2022. "The Role of Social Identity and Perceived Discrimination in Human Capital Formation: Evidence from India," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1190, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    8. Muhammad Qahraman Kakar, 2021. "Ethnic Disparities, Women Education and Empowerment in South Asia," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph21-01 edited by Manon Domingues Dos Santos.
    9. Fujii, Tomoki & Nakajima, Maki & Xu, Sijia, 2021. "Teaching in the Right Context: Textbook Supply Program, Language, and Vocabulary Ability in Vietnam," Economics and Statistics Working Papers 2-2021, Singapore Management University, School of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Children's education; Test scores; Racial disparities; Low-income countries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education

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