Education and Reducing Income Inequalities – The Importance of Education in Maritime Studies

Abstract

Contemporary studies of economic inequality and poverty emphasise that their key causes are in the area of tax policy, labour force policy, and employment, and the causes that are being pointed out lately are education and educational attainment level of the population. The aim of the paper is to confirm the theoretically defined link between education and income inequality reduction and to point out that economic policy makers cannot solve the problem of inequality in society without a significant influence on public education, primarily through increased availability and quality of public education. In the second part of the paper, the Gini coefficient, the education index, and the coefficient of human inequality are used on the example of 130 countries to establish a correlation between education and income inequality reduction. The model shows a strong link between income inequality reduction (measured by the Gini coefficient) and increase in the educational attainment level of the population, increase in income, but also improvement of the health care system. It was found that, for each unit reduction of the coefficient of human inequality (IHDI), the Gini coefficient decreases by 9.7 points. In addition to research limitations and the proposal of future research, the conclusion proposes the opportunities and measures for increasing the educational attainment level of the population in order to reduce income inequality. Emphasis is also placed on the importance of tertiary maritime education.