Paper abstract:

Recent research on trends in educational attainment has shown a pattern of growing inequality of educational attainment. Most work has focused on the loss in girls’ education or the poverty gap. This paper focuses on the differences in attainment between Russian minority population and the majority population in several Central Asian and neighboring countries.

Data used are from nationally representative household surveys collected by international organizations. Data are from either Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey collected by UNICEF, Demographic Household Surveys, collected by USAID, or the European Social Survey. All data were collected between 2015-2021. All of the data sets contained measures of educational attainment, typically the highest level attended. Each of the data sets also contain measures of ethnicity, gender, age, wealth, and rural/urban residence. Ethnicity is measured in two ways across the survey. In some surveys it is using native language and in others it is ethnicity.

Preliminary results from Central Asian countries using MICS data show an interesting picture. In most cases the Russian minority has maintained its dominance. In Uzbekistan both Uzbek and Russian speaking households are gaining specialized degrees, but in differing tracks. Russian language speakers continue to dominate in fields of higher education, compared to Uzbek speakers. Uzbek speakers in the youngest generation are attending specialized vocational training in higher percentages than Russian speakers. In Kyrgyzstan, the trend is that Russians are attending both higher Education and specialized secondary education at higher rates than their Kyrgyz peers. Similarly in Turkmenistan, Russian native speakers are also attending higher education and specialized vocational training in higher percentages than their Turkmen peers.

Only in Kazakhstan, is the trend reversed. Smaller percentages of Russians are attending higher education than Kazakhs. Instead, Russians are attending specialized vocational training in higher percentages. This trend reverses what is found in previous generations in the sample who completed higher education in larger percentages than their Kazakh peers.

Further analysis will investigate trends in neighboring countries using other datasets.