The new version (1.3) is now available!
This version (1.3) of the Barro-Lee data set has made several changes to the earlier version (1.2). The changes affected various countries in the sample, but they are not significant in magnitude for most cases.
The changes are:
We have evaluated more carefully the accuracy of the forward-flow and backward- flow estimates of educational attainment for the total and female population in the age group, 15-19 and 20-24. We have made corrections to those estimates that showed unrealistic fluctuations over time, which are mainly due to measurement errors in school enrollment rates. The new estimates display a smoother trend in each category of educational attainment and average years of schooling among the younger cohorts than the previous estimates.
We have checked the accuracy of the estimates of educational attainment among male population by age group, which are constructed from the estimates among total and female population by age group. We have made corrections to the estimates that showed unrealistic fluctuations over time.
We have changed the backward extrapolation method. We continue to apply the backward extrapolation procedure to fill in missing data for each age group by using the attainment of the older age group from the succeeding period. But it turns out that the backward-flow extrapolated estimates for the age group below 65 years old are not often accurate if we use the attainment of the age group over 65 years old from the succeeding period as benchmark data when they are not from census. So, we decide not to use the backward extrapolation method for this case. Instead, we have estimated the attainment of the age group, 60-64 by using the group-average age-specific profile for the same age group constructed using the available data of the countries in advanced countries or developing countries, and then used the estimates as benchmark data for the backward extrapolation for the age group in the preceding period.
We have used recently available UNESCO data of secondary and tertiary enrollment rates for 2010 to estimate missing attainment data. This has affected secondary and tertiary educational attainment among the population in the age group, 15-19 and 20-24.