Publication: Gender Education Gaps among Indigenous and Nonindigenous Groups in Bolivia
Loading...
Date
2015-08
ISSN
Published
2015-08
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper studies gender education gaps among indigenous and nonindigenous groups in Bolivia. Using the National Census of Population and Housing 2012 and an estimation method analogous to difference-in-differences, the paper finds that the intersection of gender and indigenous identity confers cumulative disadvantage for indigenous women in literacy, years of schooling, and primary and secondary school completion. Although gender education gaps have become narrower across generations, there remain significant differences among indigenous groups. The Aymara have the largest gender gap in all outcomes, despite having high overall attainment rates and mostly residing in urban centers, with greater physical access to schools. The Quechua have relatively smaller gender gaps, but these are accompanied by lower attainment levels. The paper discusses the possible sources of these differentials and highlights the importance of taking gender dynamics within each indigenous group into greater consideration.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Reimão, Maira Emy; Taş, Emcet O.. 2015. Gender Education Gaps among Indigenous and Nonindigenous Groups in Bolivia. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7387. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/22441 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Global Poverty Revisited Using 2021 PPPs and New Data on Consumption(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-05)Recent improvements in survey methodologies have increased measured consumption in many low- and lower-middle-income countries that now collect a more comprehensive measure of household consumption. Faced with such methodological changes, countries have frequently revised upward their national poverty lines to make them appropriate for the new measures of consumption. This in turn affects the World Bank’s global poverty lines when they are periodically revised. The international poverty line, which is based on the typical poverty line in low-income countries, increases by around 40 percent to $3.00 when the more recent national poverty lines as well as the 2021 purchasing power parities are incorporated. The net impact of the changes in international prices, the poverty line, and new survey data (including new data for India) is an increase in global extreme poverty by some 125 million people in 2022, and a significant shift of poverty away from South Asia and toward Sub-Saharan Africa. The changes at higher poverty lines, which are more relevant to middle-income countries, are mixed.Publication Geopolitical Fragmentation and Friendshoring(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-26)This paper examines the relationship between geopolitical fragmentation and friendshoring of foreign investments over time, countries, and sectors. The analysis uses comprehensive data on foreign direct investments covering greenfield projects, mergers and acquisitions, and stocks of affiliates, as well as data on four alternative measures of geopolitical distance between countries. The gravity estimations suggest that, first, geopolitical differences have a negative effect on foreign investments and the magnitude has heightened in the post-pandemic period compared to a decade ago. Second, it is primarily the companies from advanced Western economies whose foreign investment decisions are increasingly shaped by friendshoring forces. Finally, the paper shows that friendshoring is not only confined to strategic industries, implying that allocations of foreign direct investments may not solely reflect national security or resilience considerations.Publication Soaring Food Prices Threaten Recent Economic Gains in the EU(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-02)The surge in food prices following the 2021 economic rebound has become a significant concern for households, particularly low-income ones, in Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, and Romania. Food price inflation, which surpasses general inflation rates, risks worsening poverty and food insecurity in these countries. This paper explores the distributional impacts of rising food prices and the effectiveness of government response measures. Low-income households, who allocate a larger share of their income to food, are disproportionately affected and are struggling to cope with unexpected expenses, leading to increased difficulties in accessing proper nutrition. Simulations indicate that rising food prices contribute to higher poverty rates and greater income inequality, especially among vulnerable populations. They also suggest that the main poverty-targeted social assistance schemes offer critical support for the extreme poor, but expanding both coverage and benefits is vital to shield all at-risk individuals. Targeted policies that balance immediate relief with long-term resilience-building are essential to addressing the challenges posed by escalating food prices.Publication Disentangling the Key Economic Channels through Which Infrastructure Affects Jobs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)This paper takes stock of the literature on infrastructure and jobs published since the early 2000s, using a conceptual framework to identify the key channels through which different types of infrastructure impact jobs. Where relevant, it highlights the different approaches and findings in the cases of energy, digital, and transport infrastructure. Overall, the literature review provides strong evidence of infrastructure’s positive impact on employment, particularly for women. In the case of electricity, this impact arises from freeing time that would otherwise be spent on household tasks. Similarly, digital infrastructure, particularly mobile phone coverage, has demonstrated positive labor market effects, often driven by private sector investments rather than large public expenditures, which are typically required for other large-scale infrastructure projects. The evidence on structural transformation is also positive, with some notable exceptions, such as studies that find no significant impact on structural transformation in rural India in the cases of electricity and roads. Even with better market connections, remote areas may continue to lack economic opportunities, due to the absence of agglomeration economies and complementary inputs such as human capital. Accordingly, reducing transport costs alone may not be sufficient to drive economic transformation in rural areas. The spatial dimension of transformation is particularly relevant for transport, both internationally—by enhancing trade integration—and within countries, where economic development tends to drive firms and jobs toward urban centers, benefitting from economies scale and network effects. Turning to organizational transformation, evidence on skill bias in developing countries is more mixed than in developed countries and may vary considerably by context. Further research, especially on the possible reasons explaining the differences between developed and developing economies, is needed.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Does Cash for School Influence Young Women’s Behavior in the Longer Term? Evidence from Pakistan(2011-05-01)The Punjab Female School Stipend Program, a female-targeted conditional cash transfer program in Pakistan, was implemented in response to gender gaps in education. An early evaluation of the program shows that the enrollment of eligible girls in middle school increased in the short term by nearly 9 percentage points. This paper uses regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference analyses to show that five years into the program implementation positive impacts do persist. Beneficiary adolescent girls are more likely to progress through and complete middle school and work less. There is suggestive evidence that participating girls delay their marriage and have fewer births by the time they are 19 years old. Girls who are exposed to the program later, and who are eligible for the benefits given in high school, increase their rates of matriculating into and completing high school. The persistence of impacts can potentially translate into gains in future productivity, consumption, inter-generational human capital accumulation and desired fertility. Lastly, there is no evidence that the program has negative spillover effects on educational outcomes of male siblings.Publication Education in the Republic of South Sudan : Status and Challenges for a New System(Washington, DC, 2012-06-22)This education status report (ESR), prepared at the request of the Government of South Sudan (GoSS), provides a comprehensive snapshot of an education sector that is emerging from a long period of civil strife. It confirms the strong appetite among the people for education; in turn, more educated citizens are needed to provide the bedrock of the new country and its prospects. The purpose of this report is to enhance the knowledge base for policy development in the education sector and, more broadly, create a platform for engaging a diverse audience in dialogue on education policies in the new country. The ultimate aim is to help develop a shared vision for the future of the education system among government, citizens, and partners in Africa's newest nation. The report clearly shows that the education system in South Sudan faces all the challenges of a new nation that is making a visible effort to catch up quickly from a very low base by rapidly increasing student enrollment. These challenges include a concentration of students in the early grades; a high proportion of overage students, repetition, and dropout; and weak levels of student learning. Further, the report indicates that South Sudan is beginning to feel the effects of its success at increasing enrollment at the primary level with growing demand for secondary and higher education. The report also highlights the low overall quality of education, and emphasizes that quality of education and accountability of the education sector should become central considerations early on in the development of the education system. Finally, the report emphasizes the importance of South Sudan's unique Alternative Education System (AES), which will continue to play a central part in the education system for years to come. The majority of youth and adults in the country today may never benefit from formal basic education, but their learning needs must be met if South Sudan is to build a solid state and society. The AES is currently offering accelerated learning programs to more than 200,000 youth and adults and holds significant promise.Publication Do Conditional Cash Transfers Lead to Medium-Term Impacts?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011)Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs are becoming a popular tool for alleviating short-term poverty and reducing the inter-generational transmission of poverty. More than 30 developing and transition countries have implemented these programs, providing incentives to poor households to make investments in the human capital of their children. Programs vary in scale, transfer size, conditionality's, eligibility, and implementation features. This report is structured around five chapters as follows: the first chapter gives an overview of the program, the context in which it was implemented and available evidence on the impacts of the Female School Stipend Program (FSSP) as well as other CCTs. Chapter two focuses on the questions this evaluation sets out to answer and the methods and information used to answer them. The third chapter presents the results from the analysis and is structured around three evaluation questions regarding average impact, heterogeneity of impacts, and spillover effects. Chapter four performs the robustness checks of the findings, examining whether they are sensitive to preprogram trends, measurement error, endogenous compositional changes, and crowding-out effects. Finally, the conclusion discusses the implications of the results, some limitations of this evaluation, and areas that require further work.Publication Assessing Sector Performance and Inequality in Education : Streamlined Analysis with ADePT Software(World Bank, 2011-06-30)This book gathers in one volume all the information related to Automated DEC [Development Economics - Vice Presidency at the World Bank] Poverty Tables (ADePT) Edu, the software platform created by the World Bank for reporting and analyzing education indicators and education inequality. It includes a primer on the availability of education data, an operating manual for using the ADePT software, a technical explanation of all the education indicators ADePT generates, and an overview of global education inequality using ADePT Edu. Chapter one is an introduction to ADePT Edu. It describes its origin and intended use and familiarizes readers with educational statistics. Chapter two is intended for users unfamiliar with the different datasets that contain education statistics and household-level data that contain information on education. Chapter three is a step-by-step technical guide for potential users. In addition to identifying the hardware and operating system requirements, it provides graphic examples of each of the steps needed to install and operate the software. Chapter four describes the outputs of ADePT and the definitions of all the indicators it generates. Chapter five provides a global and regional overview of education inequality, using ADePT Edu outputs obtained from household survey data. It analyzes inequality in school participation, progression, and attainment. Chapter 5 also illustrates how ADePT Edu can be used to readily analyze data from any household survey, a feature that makes this software unique. The analysis of education inequality serves as a backdrop for the potential use of household surveys for analyzing the demand side of education.Publication How Can Bulgaria Improve Its Education System? An Analysis of PISA 2012 and Past Results(Washington, DC, 2012-09-26)Bulgaria's performance on all three disciplines of the program for international student assessment (PISA) 2012 was slightly better than its PISA 2000 performance, after having dropped between 2000 and 2006. The improvements in performance between 2006 and 2012 promoted shared prosperity, but equality of opportunities is still a major challenge. In fact, disaggregating students' PISA scores across a number of variables for example, location and ethnicity - shows that large inequalities exist in Bulgaria's education system. Peer characteristics and school segregation are the key drivers of the Bulgarian education system's performance. An in-depth analysis into math and reading skills shows imbalances in performance in Bulgaria. The main areas in which Bulgaria can further improve its educational system involve: delaying the tracking of students to reduce segregation in schools; continue improving the quality of educational resources to ensure that all students learn in an environment with books, lab equipment, and technological hardware and software; encouraging longer pre-primary education for all children; learning from successful schools to improve accountability mechanisms for schools countrywide, particularly in rural areas; reevaluating the curriculum and assessment framework to better align student learning to the envisaged country goals; and promoting effective classroom management and strengthening teaching practices.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication The Journey Ahead(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.