Ethnolinguistic Diversity and Education. A Successful Pairing

Ángeles Caraballo Mª and Eva Mª Buitrago
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Ángeles Caraballo Mª: Dpto. Economía e Historia Económica and IUSEN, Universidad de Sevilla, 41018 Sevilla, Spain
Eva Mª Buitrago: Dpto. Economía Aplicada III and IAIIT, Universidad de Sevilla, 41018 Sevilla, Spain

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 23, 1-18

Abstract: The many growing migratory flows render our societies increasingly heterogeneous. From the point of view of social welfare, achieving all the positive effects of diversity appears as a challenge for our societies. Nevertheless, while it is true that ethnolinguistic diversity involves costs and benefits, at a country level it seems that the former are greater than the latter, even more so when income inequality between ethnic groups is taken into account. In this respect, there is a vast literature at a macro level that shows that ethnolinguistic fragmentation induces lower income, which leads to the conclusion that part of the difference in income observed between countries can be attributed to their different levels of fragmentation. This paper presents primary evidence of the role of education in mitigating the adverse effects of ethnolinguistic fractionalization on the level of income. While the results show a negative association between fragmentation and income for all indices of diversity, the attainment of a certain level of education, especially secondary and tertiary, manages to reverse the sign of the marginal effect of ethnolinguistic fractionalization on income level. Since current societies are increasingly diverse, these results could have major economic policy implications.

Keywords: ethnolinguistic diversity; fractionalization; ethnic inequality; social cohesion; education; income per capita (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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