Does Public Education Promote Gender Equality? Evidence from 8 Countries of Different Income and Religion Levels

Gender inequality, accompanied by the progress of human thoughts, has been extensively discussed in multiple fields of study, but there is still limited research on the exact impact of public education. Is public education one of the decisive factors in the extent of gender inequality? To explore the answer and the underlying mechanism, this paper examines the relationship between public education and gender inequality by selecting three different indicators (total general government expenditure on education, average years of schooling and gross enrollment ratio in primary education) to measure the national educational level and the under-five child mortality sex ratio to measure gender inequality, collecting data from 1990 to 2021 in eight countries that represent different income and religious levels, and constructing three regression models in separate. Overall, in line with the regression results and horizontal and vertical comparisons, as the three indicators of educational level rise, there is the commonality that the mortality sex ratio decreases; however, results vary across groups of different income and religious levels. Finally, some probable explanations of those abnormal situations and possible policy implications are presented.