Education gender gap. The impact on economic growth of inequalities in education is generally assumed to be a negative one. The assumption is that the greater the inequality in education as between male and female, the lower the economic growth. According to Abu-Ghaida and Xxxxxx, ‘assuming that boys and girls have a similar distribution of innate abilities and that those at the upper end of the ability distribution of each sex are more likely to get educated, gender inequality in education must mean that less able boys than girls get the chance to be educated, and, more importantly, that the average innate ability of those who get educated is lower than would be the case if boys and girls received equal educational opportunities. 146 This lowers the average level of human capital in the economy and thus reduces economic growth’. A lot of empirical evidence exists to support this argument. First, a study by Xxxxxxx investigated the impact of gender differences in education on economic growth from 1960 to 1985.147 It compared the long-term effects of female versus male educational expansion at the mass (primary) and elite (secondary) levels, after controlling for a number of important intervening variables. Alternative hypotheses were tested using a sample of 96 countries which included 20 developed, and 76 less developed, countries. The results from the study revealed that when the intervening variables were omitted, primary and secondary education had a strong and significantly positive impact on economic growth and tertiary education had a significant negative effect.148 When the intervening variables are included, the direction of each of the educational effects remains the same, but the only variable to attain significance is primary education. The pattern of positive educational effects of mass education and negative or weak effects of higher education is basically similar to that reported in earlier studies.149 The finding that the economic impact of secondary education was weaker than previously reported was likely due to differences in the size of the sample, specification of the model, and the historical period that was examined. 146 Abu-Ghaida, D. and x. Xxxxxx (2002), ‘The costs of missing the millennium development goal on gender equity’. World Bank. 147 Xxxxxxx, X. (1989), ‘Education, gender, and economic growth: A cross-national study’. Sociology of Education, 62 (1), special issue on Gender and Education, pp. 14-32. 148 Ibid. 149 Xxxxx, J., X. Xxxxxx, X. Xxxxxxxx...
