EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

PWP-CCPR-2013-017

Abstract

We carry out a cross-national and cross-temporal analysis to assess how societal factors affect the dependence of educational attainment on parental status and the gender gap in educational attainment. Combining data from 541 sample surveys conducted in 54 nations, we estimate a microlevel model of the determinants of years of school completed in each of the 654 “contexts” created by crossing five-year schooling cohorts by nation and then carry out a macro-level analysis of the determinants of variations in the micro-level coefficients across contexts. We develop various hypotheses regarding the effect of modernization, educational expansion, educational inequality, and communism on the micro-level coefficients. Our hypotheses are generally confirmed.