Gender Differences in the Returns to Schooling and in School Enrollment Rates in Indonesia

Earnings data on a nationally representative sample of Indonesian adults show that males have significantly lower returns to secondary and tertiary schooling than females. These differences are greatest at the level of Diploma 1 and vocational secondary education, but are still substantial for nonvocational secondary schooling and university education. The estimated returns to schooling are also greater for older cohorts than for younger cohorts, although the inter-cohort differences are identical for males and females. It appears that women in Indonesia have been acquiring secondary and tertiary education in relatively larger numbers than men in recent years, perhaps in response to the greater relative returns to female higher education. However, there is still a gap between male and female enrollments at the secondary and tertiary levels. The analysis in this paper does not show many strong and systematic gender differences in the effects of household and community characteristics on school enrollments.