(iPoster) Democracy, Educational Attainment, and Adult Cognitive Skills

• In Event: Poster Session: Democracy and Autocracy I

Abstract

Growing research has challenged the leading role of democracy in the expansion of educational opportunity. Primary schooling was historically expanded in non-democracies, and democracy does not affect school quality measured by student achievement aggregated at primary and secondary schooling levels. Yet, we know little about skill formation and skill distribution across regimes and whether education quality under distinct regimes varies by education level and learning domain. This study takes the first step to address this problem by exploring how individual exposure to democracy at different stages of formal education accounts for adults' cognitive skills, a crucial aspect of human capital and determinant of individual success in the labor market, income, and other life outcomes.

The study employs individual-level PIAAC data on adults' skills in numeracy, literacy, and problem-solving and reconstructs individual educational trajectories in 30 countries, many of which experienced at least one regime change. The results of an OLS regression analysis with country-fixed effects show that one additional year of education received in a democracy is associated with higher adult proficiency in all learning domains, holding individual- and country-level factors constant. So does a bigger share of education under democracy when individuals with upper secondary and tertiary education are considered. However, neither the start of primary school in a democracy nor a bigger share of schooling received in a democracy predicts better skills for those individuals whose final qualification is primary school. The study thus shows that while regimes do not predict the minimum literacy of the population promoted through primary schools, democracy better develops the cognitive abilities of individuals who advance in education. 

The paper suggests that as the primary schooling level develops fundamental but elementary reading, writing, and arithmetic abilities, neither democracies nor autocracies may prioritize the advancement of adult skills through primary schools. Meanwhile, democracy may better promote adult skills through higher levels of education by creating an environment that is more conducive to human development. An alternative explanation, however, is that rather than outperforming autocracies in advancing skills, democracies might be better than autocracies at sorting students by ability and thus select according to merit, so it is more skilled students who get more education in democracies. Differences in how regimes advance education at different levels may have important implications for social and economic inequality across and within national contexts.

Author

• Diana Rafailova, Free University Berlin