The Effects of Armed Conflict on Educational Attainment and Inequality
The Education, wealth, and conflict data were collected from 200+ databases for nearly 100 countries and over a 50 year timespan (1960-2010). Results provide evidence that:
- Armed conflict exacerbates pre-existing inequalities between wealth and gender groups, as well as overall inequality at the national level.
- Conflict effects are more pronounced when ethnic in nature, particularly among those that last at least six years, and worsens over time. For instance, ethnic conflict lowers gender parity for education attainment by 7.6 per cent, lowering girls’ mean years of schooling from 4.8 to 4.4.
- Effects of conflict on inequality are more pronounced in fragile countries.