Raising the Floor While Lowering the Ceiling: Reduced Inequities in Education Returns in the Philippines

• Main Author: Yee, Karol Mark Ramirez
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2023
• Subjects: Educational policy; Higher education; Philippines; Returns to education; Education; Educational Administration and Supervision; Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research; Educational Leadership; Higher Education
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/gbseald-edu-lead-faculty-pubs/3; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2023.102815
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

This article examines trends in private returns to education in the Philippines among salaried graduates in 2005 and 2019 – a period during which education participation improved markedly in the country. I find returns to differing levels of attainment converging, with those for higher education falling substantially by 36 % points, relative to those with no grade completed. I further find that among college graduates, the decline was most pronounced for low-wage workers whose returns fell by 69 % points, while those for high-wage ones remained stable. This is an important update to literature which found higher education to provide disproportionate returns to low-wage college graduates a decade prior.