Mapping disparities in education across low- and middle-income countries

Abstract

Educational attainment is an important social determinant of maternal, newborn, and child health^1-3. As a tool for promoting gender equity, it has gained increasing traction in popular media, international aid strategies, and global agenda-setting^4-6. The global health agenda is increasingly focused on evidence of precision public health, which illustrates the subnational distribution of disease and illness^7,8; however, an agenda focused on future equity must integrate comparable evidence on the distribution of social determinants of health^9-11. Here we expand on the available precision SDG evidence by estimating the subnational distribution of educational attainment, including the proportions of individuals who have completed key levels of schooling, across all low- and middle-income countries from 2000 to 2017. Previous analyses have focused on geographical disparities in average attainment across Africa or for specific countries, but-to our knowledge-no analysis has examined the subnational proportions of individuals who completed specific levels of education across all low- and middle-income countries^12-14. By geolocating subnational data for more than 184 million person-years across 528 data sources, we precisely identify inequalities across geography as well as within populations.

Fig. 1. Average educational attainment and proportion of individuals with no completed primary education at the first administrative level and absolute difference between women and men aged 15–49 years.

a–d, Mean educational attainment for women (a) and men (c) and the proportion of individuals with no primary school education for women (b) and men (d) aged 15–49 years in 2017. Maps were produced using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6.

Fig. 2. National progress in secondary attainment rates for women aged 20–24 years compared with the national index of dissimilarity in 2017.

a, Change in secondary attainment rates for women age 20–24 years between 2000 and 2017 compared with the national index of dissimilarity in 2017 (simple linear regression lines are included). b, Map of the national index of dissimilarity in 2017. Maps were produced using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6.

Fig. 3. Attainment rates and contributions to national change in secondary rates for women aged 20–24 years in India and Nigeria, 2000–2017.

a, b, Attainment rates for women aged 20–24 years in 2000 (a) and 2017 (b) at the second administrative level in India. c, Additive contributions of changes in the attainment rates at the second administrative level to change in the rate at the national level between 2000 and 2017 in India. d, e, Attainment rates for women aged 20–24 years in 2000 and 2017 at the second administrative level in Nigeria. f, Additive contributions of changes in the attainment rates at the second administrative level to change in the rate at the national level between 2000 and 2017 in Nigeria. On all ternary maps, the ‘Zero’ category includes all individuals with either no schooling or some primary schooling without completion. Maps were produced using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6.

Extended Data Fig. 1. Modelling regions based on geographical and SDI regions from the GBD.

Modelling regions were defined as follows. Andean South America, Central America and the Caribbean, central sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, eastern sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East, North Africa, Oceania, Southeast Asia, South Asia, southern sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Tropical South America, and western sub-Saharan Africa. Regions in grey were not included in our models due to high-middle and high SDIs. The map was produced using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6.

Extended Data Fig. 2. Probability that the ratio of men to women aged 20–24 years who attained primary and secondary education is >1 in 2000 and 2017.

a–d, Probability that ratio is >1 (for example, men complete at a higher rate than women) for attaining primary education (a, b) and secondary education (c, d), aggregated to first administrative-level units in 2000 (a, c) and 2017 (b, d). Maps were produced using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6.

Extended Data Fig. 3. Average educational attainment and proportion with no primary school at the first administrative level and absolute difference between women and men aged 20–24 years.

a–d, Average educational attainment for women (a) and men (c) and proportion with no primary school for women (b) and men (d) aged 20–24 years in 2017. e, f, The absolute difference in average educational attainment between men and women aged 20–24 years in 2017 (e) and proportion of individuals with no primary school education (f). Maps reflect administrative boundaries, land cover, lakes and population; grey-coloured grid cells were classified as ‘barren or sparsely vegetated’ and had fewer than ten people per 1 × 1-km² grid cell^,–,, or were not included in these analyses. Interactive visualization tools are available at https://vizhub.healthdata.org/lbd/education. Maps were produced using ArcGIS Desktop 10.6.