Primary school life expectancy, adjusted gender parity index

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 primary education, 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.
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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Citations
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“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 15, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/school-life-expectancy-primary-gender-parity-index-gpi