IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/inq/inqwps/ecineq2025-688.html

Deciphering the Endowment and Price Effects of Education on Changes in Inequality in Post-Apartheid Namibia

Author

Listed:
  • Ebenezer Wirba

    (University of Namibia)

  • Obrien Muine Samahiya

    (University of Namibia)

  • Esau Kaakunga

    (University of Namibia)

Abstract

The transition from apartheid to a democratic government in Namibia in 1990 promises equal opportunity and an overall improvement in living standards for all Namibians. However, Namibia continues to struggle with one of the highest levels of inequality in the world, currently ranked second globally in terms of inequality. Using the 1993/94, 2003/04, 2009/10, and 2015/16 waves of the Namibia Income and Expenditure Surveys, this paper examines changes in consumption inequality by deciphering the role of education in terms of both the endowment effect and the price effect over the period 1993-2016. To achieve this objective, the study employs the FFL decomposition with reweighting to analyze changes in the Gini coefficient during this period. Our findings suggest that, over the period 1993-2016, Gini consumption inequality decreases by 0.17 points. The endowment effects of secondary and tertiary education significantly reduce inequality, while the price effects of secondary and tertiary education are associated with increased inequality. Although the price effect of primary education contributes to lowering inequality, the rising returns to higher education levels exacerbate income disparities.

Suggested Citation

  • Ebenezer Wirba & Obrien Muine Samahiya & Esau Kaakunga, 2025. "Deciphering the Endowment and Price Effects of Education on Changes in Inequality in Post-Apartheid Namibia," Working Papers 688, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    • Handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2025-688
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2025-688.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2025
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1964. "Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, First Edition," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck-5, January.
    2. James B. Davies & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2017. "Wealth inequality: Theory, measurement and decomposition," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 50(5), pages 1224-1261, December.
    3. Sergio Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2009. "Unconditional Quantile Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 953-973, May.
    4. Sen, Amartya, 1999. "Commodities and Capabilities," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195650389.
    5. DiNardo, John & Fortin, Nicole M & Lemieux, Thomas, 1996. "Labor Market Institutions and the Distribution of Wages, 1973-1992: A Semiparametric Approach," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1001-1044, September.
    6. Sergio P. Firpo & Nicole M. Fortin & Thomas Lemieux, 2018. "Decomposing Wage Distributions Using Recentered Influence Function Regressions," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-40, May.
    7. Abdul Abdullah & Hristos Doucouliagos & Elizabeth Manning, 2015. "Does Education Reduce Income Inequality? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 301-316, April.
    8. Hatem Jemmali & Rabeh Morrar & Fernando Rios-Avila, 2022. "On decomposing the changes in wage inequality in palestine over time," Working Papers 1620, Economic Research Forum, revised 20 Dec 2022.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maximilian Longmuir & Carsten Schröde & Matteo Targa, 2020. "De-Routinization of Jobs and Polarization of Earnings: Evidence from 35 Countries," Working Papers 1397, Economic Research Forum, revised 20 Jun 2020.
    2. Michał Brzeziński & Katarzyna Sałach, 2020. "Why wealth inequality differs between post-socialist countries?," Working Papers 2020-14, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    3. Brzezinski, Michal & Sałach, Katarzyna, 2021. "Factors that account for the wealth inequality differences between post-socialist countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    4. Luis Ayala & Javier Martín‐Román & Juan Vicente, 2024. "What contributes to rising inequality in large cities?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(5), pages 1760-1810, November.
    5. Kaltenberg, Mary & Foster-McGregor, Neil, 2020. "The impact of automation on inequality across Europe," MERIT Working Papers 2020-009, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    6. Rudolf Faininger & Svenja Flechtner, 2025. "Migrant wealth in Germany," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 23(4), pages 1255-1282, December.
    7. Mario Bossler & Thorsten Schank, 2023. "Wage Inequality in Germany after the Minimum Wage Introduction," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(3), pages 813-857.
    8. Byambasuren Dorjnyambuu & Mónika Galambosné Tiszberger, 2024. "The sources and structure of wage inequality changes in the selected Central-Eastern European Countries," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 22(4), pages 893-935, December.
    9. Franziska Brall & Ramona Schmid, 2023. "Automation, robots and wage inequality in Germany: A decomposition analysis," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 37(1), pages 33-95, March.
    10. Marina Marfil-Cotilla & Juan A. Campos-Soria & Alejandro García-Pozo, 2024. "The gender wage gap across the wage distribution: Evidence in tourism at the sectoral level," Tourism Economics, , vol. 30(4), pages 996-1020, June.
    11. Javier Alejo & Gabriel Montes-Rojas & Walter Sosa-Escudero, 2023. "RIF regression via sensitivity curves," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 32(1), pages 329-345, March.
    12. Hope Bodenschatz & Gerald Eric Daniels Jr. & Jeffrey P. Thompson, 2023. "Decomposing Lifetime-Earnings Differences between White, Black, and Hispanic Families," Working Papers 23-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    13. Ramona Schmid, 2023. "Migration and wage inequality: a detailed analysis for German metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions [Migration und Lohnungleichheit: Eine detaillierte Analyse für Deutsche Metropol- und Nicht-Metropolregionen]," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 43(1), pages 147-201, April.
    14. Holly Monti & Martha Stinson & Lori Zehr, 2020. "How Long Do Early Career Decisions Follow Women? The Impact of Employer History on the Gender Wage Gap," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 189-232, September.
    15. Roshnie Doon & Sergio Scicchitano, 2025. "The effects of overeducation on wage distribution in Trinidad and Tobago: an unconditional quantile regression analysis," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 15(1), pages 163-195, March.
    16. Francesco Bloise & Irene Brunetti & Valeria Cirillo, 2022. "Firm strategies and distributional dynamics: labour share in Italian medium-large firms," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 39(2), pages 623-655, July.
    17. Barbieri, Teresa, 2021. "Changes in the Italian wage distribution: the role of routine and social tasks," MPRA Paper 113407, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Schmid, Ramona, 2022. "Migration and wage inequality: A detailed analysis for German regions over time," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 04-2022, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    19. Daniel McMillen & Chihiro Shimizu, 2021. "Decompositions of house price distributions over time: The rise and fall of Tokyo house prices," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1290-1314, December.
    20. Girma Gezimu Gebre & Hiroshi Isoda & Dil Bahadur Rahut & Yuichiro Amekawa & Hisako Nomura, 0. "Gender Gaps in Market Participation Among Individual and Joint Decision-Making Farm Households: Evidence from Southern Ethiopia," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 0, pages 1-35.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2025-688. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maria Ana Lugo The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Maria Ana Lugo to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecineea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.