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Primary school life expectancy, adjusted gender parity index

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • In many countries, boys and girls do not spend the same amount of time in primary school — this indicator shows how close they are to parity in expected school duration at the primary level.
  • It focuses specifically on school life expectancy in , comparing the average number of years girls and boys are expected to spend in primary school based on current age-specific enrolment rates.
  • The adjusted gender parity index (GPIA) is calculated by dividing the female school life expectancy in primary education by the male school life expectancy. If the result exceeds 1, it is inverted and subtracted from 2 to produce a symmetrical scale from 0 to 2, with 1 representing perfect parity.
  • A value of 1 means boys and girls are expected to spend the same number of years in primary school. Values below 1 indicate boys are expected to spend more time in school; values above 1 indicate girls are.
  • This indicator assumes current enrolment trends continue over time and includes all children, even those who may never enrol, giving a comprehensive view of participation in primary education.
  • The data comes from administrative sources such as school censuses and registers, as well as population estimates by age, typically provided by national statistical offices or the United Nations Population Division.
  • Disaggregated by sex, this indicator helps identify gender gaps in access to and retention in primary schooling.
  • As with all expectancy-based indicators, it does not reflect actual completion or quality of education and may not account for repetition or part-time attendance, which can vary across contexts.
Primary school life expectancy, adjusted gender parity index
An of 1 indicates equality in the expected number of years a child of school entrance age is likely to spend in school between boys and girls. Values below 1 favor boys, and above 1 favor girls.
Source
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 1, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1970–2024
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: Primary school life expectancy, 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/school-life-expectancy-primary-gender-parity-index-gpi [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. “Primary school life expectancy, adjusted gender parity index” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved May 16, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/school-life-expectancy-primary-gender-parity-index-gpi