Education as a dimension of human development: A Provincial-level Education Index for Ecuador

provinces, particularly on its variation over time, as well as on the weight of each component in this inequality. Therefore, extending the previous results, we saw that the distributions of the PEI components reduced in inequality over the period studied. Nevertheless, the MYS dis- tribution, which displayed the greatest level of inequality in the two years (CV2 equal to 0.0125, in 2006, and 0.0118, in 2014), was also the one to reduced said inequality less. In con- trast, the CV2 values of the EYS in the two years showed that there was substantial homogene- ity amongst Ecuadorian provinces in terms of this educational component, particularly in 2014, in which the CV2 presented a value close to zero. Nevertheless, the distribution of this indicator reduced its inequality across provinces between 2006 and 2014 by over 50%. In addi- tion, overall educational inequality across provinces also fell between 2006 and 2014, according to the CV2 of the PEI in these years. As regards the contribution to overall inequality for the two years, the contribution of MYS was greater than that of EYS and was almost three times higher in 2014. To complement the information provided by the normalized education indices, it is worth- while looking at the indicators behind them–mean years of schooling and expected years of Fig 3. Provincial distribution of the annual mean variation between 2006 and 2014 of the mean years of schooling and the expected years of schooling indices.

Notes: Each line represents the density function of the corresponding distribution. MYS = mean years of schooling index; EYS = expected years of schooling index. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270932.g003 PLOS ONE Education as a dimension of Human development PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270932 July 8, 2022 13 / 27