Does socioeconomic inequality affect education more in less wealthy municipalities?

ABSTRACT

This study attempts to capture the full picture of educational development in an emerging country that is characterized by both high economic development and high socioeconomic inequality. A two-step model is used in this study. The first step uses the variables that are directly related to education to capture the educational efficiency of each municipality; the second step uses a statistical Tobit model to estimate the influence of the non-discretionary variables on the educational efficiency found in the first step. A previous categorization by clusters is also implemented to ensure a fair comparison among homogeneous municipalities. The results show significant discrepancies in the influence of socioeconomic variables on educational outcome, which depends on the welfare of the cluster.

Keywords:
Data Envelopment Analysis-DEA; Educational Efficiency; Basic Education; Social Inequalities