Improving the estimation of educational attainment: New methods for assessing average years of schooling from binned data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The accurate measurement of educational attainment is of great importance for population research. Past studies measuring average years of schooling rely on strong assumptions to incorporate binned data. These assumptions, which we refer to as the standard duration method, have not been previously evaluated for bias or accuracy.

Methods

We assembled a database of 1,680 survey and census datasets, representing both binned and single-year education data. We developed two models that split bins of education into single year values. We evaluate our models, and compare them to the standard duration method, using out-of-sample predictive validity.

Results

Our results indicate that typical methods used to split bins of educational attainment introduce substantial

SUBMITTER: Friedman J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6264843 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature