{"id":13964,"date":"2021-08-13T12:31:13","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T11:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.economicsobservatory.com\/?post_type=question&p=13964"},"modified":"2021-08-17T14:06:47","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T13:06:47","slug":"examining-inequality","status":"publish","type":"question","link":"https:\/\/www.economicsobservatory.com\/test\/examining-inequality","title":{"rendered":"Examining inequality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Newsletter from 13 August 2021.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price inflation has been a growing concern for economists, investors and policy-makers this year. But since the government\u2019s announcement in February that traditional secondary school examinations would be replaced by teacher-assessed grades<\/a> (for the second year running), people working in schools, colleges and universities have been worried about a different kind of inflation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The extent of grade inflation was revealed this week as pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their GCSE and A-level results. 44.8% of A-level entries were awarded A or A* and 28.9% of GCSEs were graded 7\/A or above. <\/em>As Steven Proud (University of Bristol) explains, <\/a>the increase in achievement, particularly at the upper end of the distribution, is unsurprising for a number of reasons. Teacher-assessed grades are likely to be higher as they remove some of the pressures and negative effects associated with performing on a single day in an exam. They may also be influenced by schools\u2019 incentives to improve key league table metrics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steven\u2019s analysis also reveals a starkly uneven distribution of grades between different types of schools and students. Private schools started from a higher base level<\/a> of grades at A or above (44% in 2019 versus 20% in comprehensives), and also enjoyed a larger absolute increase of 9.3 percentage points compared with last year. The corresponding figures for academies and state comprehensives were 5.7 and 6.2 percentage points, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethnic disparities in A-level grades achieved within schools do not appear to have increased this year (Ofqual, 2021<\/a>), but inequality between socioeconomic groups is accelerating. In England, the percentage point penalty at GCSE for students on free school meals grew to 17.9, up from 13.5 in 2019. As Sir Peter Lampl, Chair of the Sutton Trust argues<\/a>, the pandemic has compounded longstanding inequalities in disadvantaged students\u2019 access to technology and textbooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enforced absence<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Inequality in access to educational resources during the pandemic has been a global problem. In another Economics Observatory piece this week, Hans Henrik Sievertsen (University of Bristol) focused on how school closures have affected children around the world<\/a>, concluding that poorer countries\u2019 education systems have been more severely affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The average duration of full or partial school closures is 39 weeks, but as shown in Figure 1 below, certain areas have endured much longer closures \u2013 for example the Americas and South Asia. Countries also differ in their split between full (nation-wide shutdowns) and partial (regional shutdowns\/reductions in-person schooling) closures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hans shows that richer countries tend to have more weeks of partial rather than full school closures. The average duration of full school closures is \u2018only\u2019 seven weeks in Europe and North America, which is nearly four times lower than in Latin America. This means cross-country inequality may increase in the long run. Countries that are already behind in terms of schooling have been more affected by full closures. This suggests learning losses are higher, and will be harder to recover, in countries with fewer resources to begin with.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 4: Map of Covid-induced partial and full school closures, March 2020 to May 2021<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"map\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Source: UNESCO. Note: Grey = no data<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

From A-levels to Levelling Up<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Growing educational inequality is present at both the national and regional level. In England, pupils in London achieved the best GCSE results and the biggest improvement<\/a>, while Yorkshire and the Humber performed worst. This is a reminder of the need for more meaningful progress in reducing regional disparities \u2013 or levelling up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One measure of where levelling up funds are most needed was discussed in an Observatory article<\/a> on Monday. Using pre-Covid deprivation metrics and a new index of pandemic impact, John Gathergood (Nottingham), Benedict Guttman-Kenney (Chicago Booth), Fabian Gunzinger (Warwick Business School), Sarah Hall (Nottingham), Benjamin Lucas (Nottingham), Paul Mizen (Nottingham), Edika Quispe-Torreblanca (Sa\u00efd Business School, Oxford), Neil Stewart (Warwick Business School) and Arif Sulistiono (Nottingham) find that places including Blackpool, Newham and Great Yarmouth should be the highest priorities for support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Figure 2 below, these places are in the bottom left quadrant, meaning that pre-existing and long-term deprivation there has been aggravated by the shock of Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figure 2: Correlations between 2019 IMD scores and Index of Covid-19 Economic Impact<\/h4>\n\n\n
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