Table 3 Random effects meta-analysis of educational attainment (16 + yrs) proportions by demographic category.

From: A cross-national analysis of sociodemographic variation in educational attainment

 

Prediction Interval

 

Variable Category

Proportion

95% CI of Proportion

SE1

LL

UL

Heterogeneity (τ)

\({I}^{2}\)

Global

p-value

Age group

       

 < .001**

 

18–24

0.08

(0.05,0.13)

0.02

0.01

0.40

0.10

97.8

 
 

25–29

0.20

(0.13,0.30)

0.04

0.02

0.63

0.20

98.1

 
 

30–39

0.20

(0.13,0.30)

0.04

0.02

0.61

0.20

98.2

 
 

40–49

0.15

(0.09,0.25)

0.04

0.01

0.63

0.19

98.6

 
 

50–59

0.10

(0.05,0.19)

0.04

0.00

0.52

0.16

99.0

 
 

60–69

0.09

(0.05,0.16)

0.03

0.00

0.44

0.13

98.5

 
 

70–79

0.08

(0.03,0.17)

0.04

0.00

0.50

0.15

99.2

 
 

80 or olderǂ

0.02

(0.00,0.08)

0.02

0.00

0.48

0.06

99.7

 

Gender

        

 < .001**

 

Male

0.15

(0.10,0.22)

0.03

0.02

0.50

0.14

97.6

 
 

Female

0.14

(0.08,0.22)

0.03

0.01

0.53

0.16

98.3

 
 

Otherǂ

0.04

(0.00,0.24)

0.06

0.00

1.00

0.16

99.8

 

Marital status

       

 < .001**

 

Married

0.15

(0.09,0.24)

0.04

0.01

0.56

0.17

98.3

 
 

Separated

0.07

(0.02,0.18)

0.04

0.00

0.46

0.17

99.5

 
 

Divorced

0.09

(0.04,0.21)

0.04

0.00

0.54

0.19

99.3

 
 

Widowed

0.06

(0.02,0.13)

0.03

0.00

0.35

0.11

99.1

 
 

Domestic partner

0.12

(0.05,0.24)

0.05

0.00

0.69

0.20

99.2

 
 

Single, never married

0.16

(0.11,0.23)

0.03

0.02

0.42

0.14

97.3

 

Employment status

       

 < .001**

 

Employed for an employer

0.22

(0.15,0.30)

0.04

0.02

0.65

0.18

97.5

 
 

Self-employed

0.15

(0.09,0.24)

0.04

0.01

0.65

0.18

98.5

 
 

Retired

0.12

(0.08,0.19)

0.03

0.01

0.43

0.13

97.9

 
 

Student

0.08

(0.05,0.14)

0.02

0.01

0.46

0.10

97.9

 
 

Homemaker

0.04

(0.02,0.09)

0.02

0.00

0.25

0.08

98.8

 
 

Unemployed and looking for a job

0.11

(0.08,0.16)

0.02

0.02

0.30

0.09

96.0

 
 

None of these/other

0.07

(0.03,0.16)

0.03

0.00

0.33

0.14

99.1

 

Religious service attendance

       

 < .001**

 

 > 1/week

0.12

(0.08,0.19)

0.03

0.01

0.48

0.13

97.6

 
 

1/week

0.14

(0.09,0.23)

0.04

0.01

0.50

0.16

98.2

 
 

1–3/month

0.15

(0.09,0.24)

0.04

0.01

0.54

0.17

98.3

 
 

A few times a year

0.17

(0.11,0.25)

0.04

0.01

0.57

0.17

97.8

 
 

Never

0.13

(0.07,0.23)

0.04

0.00

0.59

0.18

98.8

 

Immigration status

       

 < .001**

 

Born in this country

0.14

(0.09,0.22)

0.03

0.01

0.50

0.15

97.8

 
 

Born in another country

0.13

(0.05,0.29)

0.06

0.00

0.60

0.27

99.5

 
  1. Note. N = 202,898. *p < .05; **p < .008 (Bonferroni corrected threshold); ǂGroup is very small (< 0.1% of the observed sample) within several countries leading to large uncertainty in this estimate—be cautious about interpreting this estimate; 1SE Analogue = Standard Error approximated by CI Width/4; CI = confidence interval; LL = lower limits of prediction interval; UL = upper limit of prediction interval; prediction interval is the range of likely values of the estimate for a randomly selected country; τ is the standard deviation of the distribution of proportions (back-transformed from the logit-scale) across countries, which is an indicator of cross-national heterogeneity; I2 is an estimate of the variability in means due to heterogeneity across countries vs. sampling variability which is not uncommonly nearly 100% when there is nice precision in estimated proportion within country; and the Global p-value corresponds to a test of the null hypothesis that there are no differences between the groups for that sociodemographic characteristic in all of the 22 countries or territories.
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