Educational Opportunities in Indonesia: Are Factors Outside Individual Responsibility Persistent Over Time?

Abstract

Not all sources of inequality in educational achievements are fair. But how strong and persistent is the burden of unequal opportunities that each person carries on in their life? In this paper, we define individual indices of the burden of circumstances, which measure the effect that the accumulation of factors outside individual control, has on individual educational achievements in the short and long run. As our findings suggest, the effect of these circumstances tends to persist over time. This effect has been particularly strong for the generation of students who experienced the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Lastly, we do not find evidence of a sizeable effect of local non-routine education expenditure on the inequality of opportunity, causing us to question the effectiveness of educational policies in accurately targeting equity.