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Average years of schooling, adjusted gender parity index

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • In many countries, men and women have spent different amounts of time in school — this indicator shows how close they are to achieving equality in educational attainment.
  • It captures gender equality in average years of schooling by comparing how many years of formal education have been completed on average by women and men aged 25 and older.
  • The adjusted gender parity index (GPIA) is calculated by dividing the average years of schooling for women by that of men. If the result is greater than 1, it is inverted and subtracted from 2. This creates a scale from 0 to 2, centered around 1.
  • A GPIA value of 1 means men and women have the same average number of completed school years. A value below 1 shows a gap in favour of men, and a value above 1 shows a gap in favour of women.
  • This indicator is useful for highlighting long-term trends in gender inequality in education and assessing the lasting effects of policies aimed at closing the gender gap.
  • The data comes from household surveys or population censuses, where individuals report the highest level of education they have completed. These levels are then converted into years of schooling based on standard durations defined by International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED).
  • Because this indicator reflects accumulated schooling over time, it shows how gender disparities have developed across generations.
  • Some limitations include differences in education system structures between countries and challenges in mapping survey responses to ISCED levels. The indicator measures duration of schooling, not its quality or outcomes.
  • Even so, the GPIA for average years of schooling provides a clear measure of gender equality in education over the life course, and is an important complement to indicators focused on current enrolment or access.
Average years of schooling, adjusted gender parity index
An of 1 indicates equal average years of schooling between men and women. Values below 1 favor men, and above 1 favor women.
Source
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 1, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1970–2023
Unit
index

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the official and trusted source of internationally-comparable data on education, science, culture and communication. As the official statistical agency of UNESCO, the UIS produces a wide range of state-of-the-art databases to fuel the policies and investments needed to transform lives and propel the world towards its development goals. The UIS provides free access to data for all UNESCO countries and regional groupings from 1970 to the most recent year available.

Retrieved on
May 1, 2025
Retrieved from
https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources/bulk
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Education, https://uis.unesco.org/bdds, 2025

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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Average years of schooling, adjusted gender parity index”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, Natasha Ahuja, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2023) - “Global Education”. Data adapted from UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gender-ratios-for-mean-years-of-schooling [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Average years of schooling, adjusted gender parity index” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved May 15, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gender-ratios-for-mean-years-of-schooling