fruits of policies aimed at universalizing education are evident in the distribution of education outcomes by age cohorts (see Appendix A). For example, individuals 70 years of age or older completed an average of 4.4 years of schooling, while those between 50 and 59 completed 7.4 years and individuals aged 30 to 39 completed an average of 9.9 years of schooling. Education is a unique outcome in the sense that, for the vast majority of people, formal schooling is accumulated in the first couple of decades of life and remains constant afterwards.<sup>13</sup> As such, in considering the educational attainment of individuals born in the 1950s, for example, one primarily observes schooling that was likely achieved in the 1950s-1970s, since few people return to school and progress in educational attainment after their 20s and 30s. Such generational differences can be seen particularly across the 70+ age cohort (who likely completed their education prior to the reforms brought about by the 1952 revolution) vis-à-vis those currently in their 30s (who went through the educational system at least partially during the 1980s).

Despite efforts to universalize education, however, the census data indicate that improvements were not uniform across gender and ethnicity, and several gaps remain, particularly in secondary school completion and years of education. Literacy rates have improved dramatically for all cohorts, including female Aymaras and Quechuas, so that while only one-fourth of women 70 years of age or older in those groups are literate, virtually all girls 12-19 years of age, both indigenous and non-indigenous, are literate. As such, the gap between groups in this dimension has closed. Similar progress has been made for primary school completion, as only one-fifth of Aymara and Quechua women aged 60-69 have completed primary school, but as many as ninetenths of Aymara girls and four-fifths of Quechua girls aged 14-19 completed primary school. These gaps are even smaller among younger cohorts. In contrast, the rate of secondary school completion has unequivocally increased across age cohorts, but the gap between nonindigenous men on the one hand, and Quechua people on the other, remains large. Among those aged 70 or older, 35 percent of nonindigenous men and only 3 percent of Quechua women completed secondary school; the respective rates for those aged 20-29 is 71 percent and 44 percent, respectively, resulting in a gap of similar magnitude for both age cohorts. A parallel pattern occurs for years of education. Although the average has increased for both nonindigenous and indigenous groups, Quechua women in their 30s still have 4.9 fewer years of education than nonindigenous men, and, for those over 70 years of age, the deficit is 6.4 years.

Finally, considering gender-based differences _within_ each indigenous group, the progress of Aymara men stands out from all other groups. Though the secondary completion rate of Aymara men 60+ is close to those of other indigenous groups (and much lower than their nonindigenous counterparts), it is clear that in the latter half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century Aymara men experienced a faster rate of gains in secondary school completion than other groups. For cohorts in their 20s and 30s, the secondary school completion rate of Aymara men stands closer to that of nonindigenous men and women than to those of any indigenous group. This trend is followed by a more recent one by Aymara women. While Aymara women in their 50s and older have the worst level of secondary school completion of all groups, those in their 20s have a completion

> 13 Education is different from a measurement of, say, access to health, housing or transportation services in that differences in access to any of these services today across cohorts do not necessarily carry information on previous access. An elderly person’s current use of medical services, as collected in the census, does not provide information on her use of the same service during her youth, though the latter may have very important implications for the former. In contrast, an elderly person’s current education level is likely to have been determined much earlier in life, and is an indicator (albeit with potential error) of her previous use of education services.

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