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Urban and Rural Dimensions of the Role of Education in Inequality: A Comparative Analysis Between Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines

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Rural–Urban Dichotomies and Spatial Development in Asia

Part of the book series: New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives ((NFRSASIPER,volume 48))

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Abstract

In an urban-rural dual framework, this study investigates the roles of education in expenditure inequality in three ASEAN countries (Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines) using data from nationwide household surveys. To reduce overall expenditure inequality, Myanmar needs to reduce expenditure inequalities within educational groups, because unlike Indonesia and the Philippines, expenditure disparities between urban and rural areas and between educational groups were not large. In Indonesia and the Philippines, narrowing urban-rural educational gap could mitigate overall expenditure inequality by reducing urban-rural expenditure disparity. These two countries need to further improve the quality of primary and secondary education and reduce dropout rates particularly in urban areas, thereby raising the enrollment ratio of tertiary education. At the same time, policies that could reduce variations in quality among tertiary education institutions need to be introduced, since expenditure inequality among urban households with tertiary education was relatively high.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The formula of the Theil index T will be presented in the methodology section. In this study, another Theil index, the Theil index L, is also used to perform a hierarchical inequality decomposition analysis. But the result is similar to the one by the Theil index T qualitatively and thus it is not presented.

  2. 2.

    Table 6.15 in the Appendix presents the way how to determine the number of years of education completed by the head of household.

  3. 3.

    The distributions of households are estimated using sampling household weights.

  4. 4.

    See Table 6.15 in the Appendix for the classifications of households in Indonesia, Myanmar and the Philippines.

  5. 5.

    Since 2015, the name of the survey has been changed to the Myanmar Living Condition Survey.

  6. 6.

    Tables 6.16, 6.17 and 6.18 in the Appendix summarizes these results based on the hierarchical decomposition equation (Eq. 6.5). It also presents the result of a non-hierarchical decomposition analysis (Eq. 6.7).

  7. 7.

    Growth is strictly pro-poor if it is accompanied by the reduction of inequality.

  8. 8.

    The between-sector inequality refers to expenditure disparity between the urban and rural sectors, while the between-group disparity refers to expenditure disparity between educational groups.

  9. 9.

    According to the World Development Indicators, informal employment as a proportion of total non-agricultural employment was high at 83% in 2015.

  10. 10.

    Economic growth is highly pro-poor if the growth is accompanied by the fall of inequality.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research 15KK0096, 18K01589, and 18K01635).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. International University of Japan, Niigata, Japan

    Takahiro Akita

  2. Graduate School of Business Administration and College of Business Administration, Ritsumeikan University, Osaka, Japan

    Sachiko Miyata

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  1. Takahiro Akita
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  2. Sachiko Miyata
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Correspondence to Takahiro Akita .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA

    Amitrajeet A. Batabyal

  2. University of Tsukuba, Tsuchiura, Ibaraki, Japan

    Yoshiro Higano

  3. Management Science, Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, Limburg, The Netherlands

    Peter Nijkamp

Appendix

Appendix

Table 6.15 Years of Education
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Table 6.16 Hierarchical versus nonhierarchical decomposition of expenditure inequality, Indonesia
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Table 6.17 Hierarchical versus nonhierarchical decomposition of expenditure inequality, Myanmar
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Table 6.18 Hierarchical versus nonhierarchical decomposition of expenditure inequality, the Philippines
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Table 6.19 Expenditure Shares of Decile Groups in Urban and Rural Sectors in Indonesia (in %)
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Table 6.20 Expenditure shares of Decile Groups in urban and rural sectors in Myanmar (in %)
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Table 6.21 Expenditure Shares of Decile Groups in urban and rural sectors in the Philippines (in %)
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Akita, T., Miyata, S. (2021). Urban and Rural Dimensions of the Role of Education in Inequality: A Comparative Analysis Between Indonesia, Myanmar, and the Philippines. In: Batabyal, A.A., Higano, Y., Nijkamp, P. (eds) Rural–Urban Dichotomies and Spatial Development in Asia. New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives, vol 48. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1232-9_6

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