Gender and Education in Turkey

Simon Wigley Philosophy

Bilkent University

Arzu Akkoyunlu Economics

Hacettepe University

Version: Tuesday, November 27, 2012

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The Eskişehir Yolu Survival Test

• Assume that you like staying alive and not being hurt. Most of us like those things, and yet we still drive up and down Eskişehir yolu.

• If you had the choice between being driven down Eskişehir yolu by a randomly selected female driver or a randomly selected male driver, which would you choose?

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• Traffic deaths in Turkey per 100, 000 people in 2004

– Male: 17.82

– Female: 6.58

• Researchers in the United States have found that, based on miles driven, there is a 77% higher chance of a male driver dying in a car accident than a female driver.

• That seems to contradict the common perception that men are superior drivers, less likely to get lost when driving and so on.

• Male visuospatial superiority? = superior ability of (male) soft creatures to maneuver a hard and heavy object at speed amongst other hard and heavy objects, many of which are also being maneuvered by (male and female) soft creatures.

• Common belief suggests that you really want a male pilot to manually dock a space craft onto a orbiting space station. The evidence suggests the opposite!

3

The problem with prioritarianism

• Priority on the well-being/ life quality of the worst-off. (e.g. ensuring that they at least have basic needs or don’t fall below the poverty line or that they achieve a threshold level of numeracy and literacy).

• Problem: equality as a precondition for priority (i) The prioritarian approach permits inequality of resources,

(ii) Inequality of resources leads to/ reinforces inequality of influence.

(iii) Equality of influence over decision-making is a key determinant of priority.

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Equality in the capability to influence

• Real opportunity to influence decision-making in household, work-place and public life.

• Enables self-protection in each of those spheres. • Ineffectual unless it is equally possessed. • Functioning in itself

and

• Essential for ensuring that all achieve the other basic functionings (e.g. cognitive and health functionings) (i.e. self-protection)

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Some Painful Truths

• In comparatively similar roles women in Turkey earn little more than ½ of what men earn. [rank: 85/135 countries]

• Only 26% of those in work or seeking work are women. [rank: 125/135 countries]

• Only 10% of legislators, senior officials and managers are women. [rank: 103/135 countries]

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• While more than half of eligible voters are women, only 4% of ministerial positions are occupied by women [rank: 85/135 countries]

• Turkey ranked 124/135 on the Gender Gap Index in 2012 (World Economic Forum, 2012).

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Gender Equality in Education

• Recent shift toward greater gender equality in the sphere of education.

• Why hasn’t that change flowed through to the workplace and public life?

• Too soon or are the improvements in educational equality being exaggerated?

• We argue that recent gains in terms of equality of educational attainment hide ongoing inequality in terms of learning outcomes.

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1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

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Year

Female Educational Attainment (ages 15-19)

Turkey

Bangladesh

Bolivia

Brazil

China

Egypt

Mexico

Sri Lanka

Thailand

Turkey (male)

9

0.00

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1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

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Year

Gender Inequality in Education Attainment (ages 15-19)

Turkey

Bangladesh

Bolivia

Brazil

China

Egypt

Mexico

Sri Lanka

Thailand

1.00 = EQUALITY

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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

all richest poorest male female gender ratio

%

13 year-olds Enrolled in School

1993

1998

2003

2008

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Inequality of Learning Outcomes

• Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 study of 15 year-olds in formal education (= those who have completed primary school).

• Differential drop-out rates between genders in different countries may bias the results.

• Of the 40 countries participating in PISA 2003, Turkey had the lowest proportion of enrolled 15 years-olds.

• Guiso et al (2008) control for that source of bias by excluding observations for those students from less advantaged backgrounds (where dropping out is more common).

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• Average mathematics score in Turkey was 22.6 points higher for males.

• Only 2 of the 40 participating countries had a wider gender gap.

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Brazil

Turkey

Rep. of Korea

Italy

Greece

Japan

Switzerland

Luxembourg

New Zealand

Slovak Rep.

Denmark

Germany

Canada

Czech Rep.

Spain

Austria

Uruguay

Belgium

Russian Fed.

Ireland

USA

Portugal

Finland

France

Poland

Hungary

Tunisia

Latvia

Mexico

Norway

Australia

Netherlands

Sweden

United Kingdom

Indonesia

Thailand

Iceland

.6.6

5.7

.75

.8

Wom

en E

mancip

ation (

Gende

r G

ap I

ndex)

-30 -20 -10 0 10 20Math Gap

For each country, the math gap is the average math score of girls minus the average mathscore of boys.

Math gender gap and women emancipation

14 Source: Zingales at http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/sapienza/gender/

• Five countries with a similar or lower level of economic development (Indonesia, Mexico, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay) had a much narrower math gender gap than Turkey.

• … although, the gender gap in Brazil was slightly worse and the gender gap in South Korea was only slightly better (see scatter plot).

• Correlation between gender gap and gender inequality measures remained statistically significant when controlling for GDP per capita.

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Reading Gender Gap

• In all countries females perform better than males on the PISA reading test.

• Average reading scores in Turkey was 25.1 points higher for females.

• Only 6 of the 40 participating countries had a narrower gender gap.

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Social Conditioning

• Guiso et al (2008) argue that gender differences in the PISA scores are due to social conditioning, rather than biological factors.

• Influence of culture persists between countries with a similar or identical evolutionary history.

• That finding is supported by experimental evidence …

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Mental rotation test

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• Males consistently outperform females on the mental rotation test.

• Moè (2009): Three groups - – Group 1: told ‘men perform better than women in this

test, probably for genetic reasons’. – Group 2: told ‘women perform better than men in this

test, probably for genetic reasons’. – Group 3: told nothing about gender (control group).

• Men in groups 1 and 3 performed better than the

women in those groups. • Women in group 2 performed just as well as the

men in group 2.

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Culture or Economy? • If cross-country variation in the gender

gap is due to social conditioning, what explains cross-country variation in social conditioning?

• Is it because certain cultures are inherently more patriarchal (male dominated)?

• Or, is it because of cross-country differences in economic history?

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The Economic Transformation Thesis

• Some argue that all cultures have a strong patriarchal tradition and that particular forms of economic growth have enabled some to break the mold.

• Expansion of low-skilled/ low wage manufacturing jobs at some point in their history.

• Transformative effect on educational achievement and the capability to influence household, workplace and public decision-making (i.e. the ability to self-protect).

• In other words, variation in cultural ‘type’ does not explain variation in social conditioning across countries.

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How should we measure the value of education?

Or, in what sense does education contribute to human well-being?

• Resources (e.g. income)?

• Capabilities (e.g. real opportunity to pursue an intellectually stimulating or creative life)?

• Happiness? (e.g. how much did you laugh or smile lately?)

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Happiness: The problem of adaptive preferences.

• People living in deprived or oppressive circumstances often report a surprisingly high level of happiness.

• People adjust what they value according to what they realistically expect to achieve or avoid.

• For example: People in Afghanistan report being happier than the world average. (Graham, 2010)

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Does education make you happy? Turkish Males Turkish Females

Total

Education level

Total

Education level

Lower Middle Upper Lower Middle Upper

Feeling of happiness

Very happy

30.10% 32.00% 28.60% 26.30% 39.90% 41.60% 36.90% 32.30%

Quite happy

40.80% 37.70% 46.10% 38.70% 43.20% 42.20% 45.40% 45.70%

Not very

happy

16.60% 16.20% 15.10% 22.90% 11.10% 10.50% 11.90% 15.70%

Not at all

happy

12.60% 14.20% 10.30% 12.10% 5.80% 5.80% 5.80% 6.40% 24

• More education appears to make men and women less happy.

• In spite of gender inequality in Turkey, women appear to be happier than men.

• Lower educated women appear to be significantly happier than upper educated men.

• So is less education better for you? Are young females better off not going to school?

• What do we say to the father, husband or male politician who says that their under-educated daughters, wives or fellow citizens are happy with the way things are?

• The problem of adaptive preferences suggests that well-being (and, therefore, the value of education) should not be measured in terms of mental satisfaction.

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References

• Akkoyunlu, A. and S. Wigley, 2008, ‘Education and Capability Development in Turkey,’ in Nohl , Akkoyunlu & Wigley eds. Education in Turkey (Waxman), at http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~wigley/akkoyunluwigleyturkeyeducationcapabilities.pdf.

• Baker, D.P. and D. P. Jones. 1993. ‘Creating Gender Equality,’ Sociology of Education, 66(2): 91-103.

• Blumberg, R.L. 1988. ‘Income under Female versus Male Control,’ Journal of Family Issues 9(1): 51-84.

• Burns, N., K.L. Schlozman, and S. Verba, 2001, The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political Participation (Harvard University Press).

• Elster, J. 1983. Sour Grapes : Studies in the Subversion of Rationality (Cambridge).

• Fine, C. 2011. Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences (Icon Books).

• Fischbeck et al. 2007. ‘An Interactive Tool to Compare and Communicate Traffic Safety Risks,’ Journal of Transportation Research Forum, 46(3): 87-102 at http://www.epp.cmu.edu/csir/Content/Research/Automobile%20Safety/Fischbeck%20JTRF.pdf.

• Graham, C. 2010. The Pursuit of Happiness. (Brookings Institution).

• Guiso, L., F. Monte, P. Sapienza, and L. Zingales, 2008, ‘Culture, Gender and Math,’ Science. 320(5880): 1164-1165 (‘math gap vs. emancipation’ scatter plot taken from P. Sapienza at http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/sapienza/gender/).

• Huguet, P. and I. Régner, 2007. ‘Stereotype Threat Among Schoolgirls in Quasi Ordinary Classroom Circumstances,’ Journal of Educational Psychology, 99(3): 545-560.

• Hyde, J.S. and J.E. Mertz, 2009. ’Gender, Culture and Mathematics Performance,’ PNAS, 106(22): 8801-8807.

• Inglehart, R. and P. Norris, 2003, Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change (Cambridge University Press).

• Moè, A. 2009. ‘Are Males Always Better than Females in Mental Rotation?’ Learning and Individual Differences 19(1): 21-27.

• Neuville, E. and J.C. Croizet, 2007. ‘Can Salience of Gender Identity Impair Math Performance among 7-8 years old Girls? The Moderating Role of Task Difficulty,’ European Journal of Psychology of Education, XXII(3): 307-336.

• Nosek, B.A., F.L. Smyth, et al., 2009. ‘National Differences in Gender-Science Stereotypes Predict National Sex Differences in Science and Math Achievement,’ PNAS, 106(26): 10593-10597.

• Nussbaum, M. 2001, Women and Human Development (Cambridge University Press).

• Ross, M. 2008, ‘Oil, Islam and Women,’ American Political Science Review, 102(1): 107-123.

• Sen, A, 2009, The Idea of Justice (Harvard University Press).

• Walton, G.M. and S.J. Spencer, 2009. ‘Latent Ability: Grades and Test Scores Systematically Underestimate the Intellectual Ability of Negatively Stereotyped Students,’ Psychological Science, 20(9): 1132-1139.

• Wigley, S. and A. Akkoyunlu, 2006, ‘Human Capabilities versus Human Capital: Gauging the Value of Education in Developing Countries,’ Social Indicators Research, 78(2): 287-304.

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Data Sources

• Barro, R. and J-W. Lee. 2010. ‘Educational Attainment Dataset,’ at http://www.barrolee.com/

• Demographic and Health Surveys, 2012. MEASURE DHS STATcompiler, at http://www.statcompiler.com/

• WHO, ‘Global Burden of Disease,’ at http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/estimates_country/en/index.html

• World Bank, ‘Educational Attainment Around the World,’ at http://go.worldbank.org/Q44R7V9HZ0

• World Economic Forum, 2012. Gender Gap Index at http://reports.weforum.org/global-gender-gap-report-2012/

• World Values Survey at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/

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