A Mathematical Tool Developed at UMH Aims to Bridge the Gender Gap in Education

Researchers at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH) have developed a mathematical model to assist European educational authorities in enhancing educational performance. Published in the scientific journal Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, the model aims to reduce gender disparities in education, regardless of their nature.

"In many European countries, women outperform men at all educational levels. If we are to talk about equality, we must also address these differences," explains Inmaculada Sirvent, a professor of Statistics and Operational Research at UMH and one of the study's authors.

The study examines four indicators from the European Commission related to the right to knowledge: higher education qualifications, continuous training, early school leaving, and the percentage of young people neither studying nor working.

One of the study's key findings is that, on average, women outperform men in three of the four indicators analyzed. The most significant difference is in higher education: 38.5% of European women hold a degree higher than compulsory education, compared to 32% of men. "This inequality, although favourable to women, remains a gender gap, as it reflects an imbalance that the educational system can address," clarifies the UMH professor.

Based on data from 93 European regions, the proposed mathematical model allows for setting realistic improvement goals for each region, considering two simultaneous criteria: approaching best practices and reducing the gender gap in each indicator.

"This dual optimization is the main novelty of the work," points out Sirvent. The UMH expert explains that this approach allows for designing different improvement strategies depending on the priority given to each objective: "If rapid progress is sought, closer goals can be chosen but may maintain certain inequalities; if equality is prioritized, more balanced goals between genders can be set, even if it requires greater effort."

The model employs a technique known as data envelopment analysis (DEA), used to evaluate comparative efficiency among similar units. In this case, it is adapted to establish personalized goals that simultaneously reduce the distance to best educational practices and the differences between men and women in educational outcomes.

"One of the most striking cases is Estonia, where 54% of women have higher education qualifications compared to 31% of men," notes José L. Ruiz, a professor of Statistics and Operational Research at UMH and co-author of the study. The model shows that it is possible to reduce this gap without demanding significant additional effort from the Estonian educational system. Also, Iceland and some regions of Poland, Finland, and Spain show marked inequalities in favour of women, while in Germany, Switzerland, or Austria, there are regions where the gap favours men.

The model is based on data envelopment analysis (DEA), a common tool in public policy evaluation. In this case, it has been expanded to incorporate closing the gender gap as an additional objective and has been applied for the first time at the subnational level in the European educational context.

In this work, Sirvent and Ruiz, researchers at the Institute of Operational Research at UMH, collaborated with Dovilė Stumbrienė, a researcher from the Faculty of Philosophy at Vilnius University (Lithuania), the study's lead author.