The Effect of Education on Income Inequality in Selected Islamic Countries

Abstract

The impact of education on income inequality remains a challenging issue at the core of economic debates. The present study attempts to investigate the effect of income inequality in a selection of Islamic countries during 1990-2013. Method of panel data has been implemented, and the fixed effects are examined against the random ones by the Hausman test. The impacts of gross domestic product (GDP) and training at primary, secondary and university levels on income inequality is investigated in the selected Islamic countries. Findings indicate that the enrolment rate in primary and secondary schools has a significant negative effect on income inequality, and the enrolment rate in university has a significant positive effect on income inequality. Thus, training in primary and secondary schools might reduce income inequality, and education in universities can increase income inequality because of the higher financial capability of certain classes of people and the expertise they have acquired. Likewise, the Kuznets inverted-U hypothesis is approved due to the positive and statistically significant estimated coefficient of

Factors Affecting Women's Income in Vietnam: Analysis of Provincial Data

“…With the number of students in the province, different from the Chiswick study (1971) who pointed out that increasing the proportion of students participating in higher education would help raise incomes for women, this research found that the number of student per 1000 population exerts a negative effect on women's incomes. This result is similar to that of Shahabadi et al (2018) who argue that increasing the number of students participating in higher education will increase the gender pay gap due to the high cost of such education and the lack of economic support from the government. In more men-favored society the rate of women participating in higher education is not high.…”

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“…Meanwhile, supporting this finding, Chongvilaivan dan Kim (2016) finds that education gaps in Indonesia dominantly lead to income inequality increases. A positive higher education-income inequality relationship is also found in emerging developing countries (Coady & Dizioli, 2018) and Islamic countries (Shahabadi et al, 2018) like Indonesia. In addition, Wells (2006) mentions numerous studies that support the positive relationship between education and income inequality, including Barro (2000).…”

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