Regional inequalities in access to STEM-oriented secondary education in Latvia
Mihails Hazans,
Rasmus Bøgh Holmen,
Jānis Upenieks and
Oksana Žabko
MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany
Abstract:
Education scholars and human geographers have extensively studied spatial disparities in access to secondary education, both in developing countries and in advanced economies. However, very few studies have analysed access to specific types of secondary education, particularly programs oriented toward Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM-oriented programs). This paper aims to fill this gap using rich geodata and administrative data on Latvia. An overview of the supply of STEM-related skills in the Nordic-Baltic region suggests that in this regard Latvia performs the worst in terms of both recent university graduates and working-age population in general. We show that 43 percent of youth aged 15 to 18 cannot reach a STEM program within 30 minutes by walking. Furthermore, estimates of earnings differentials by access time, between program types, and between two modes of travel suggest that children from wealthier families have better access to STEM programs. More densely populated settlements feature better access to STEM programs, as well as better exam results in STEM disciplines, while language exam results do not show such a pattern.
Keywords: Access to secondary education; STEM-oriented programs; regional disparities; geographic information system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I24 I28 R53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-inv, nep-tra and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/120646/1/MPRA_paper_120646.pdf original version (application/pdf)
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:120646
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().