Ethnic origin still a factor in Macau’s education – study

“Ethnic characteristics influence educational attainment, and these findings are both practically and statistically significant,” in Macau, according to researcher Chi Chong Tang from the Centre for Gaming and Tourism Studies at Macau Polytechnic Institute.
Chi Chong Tang wanted to know if the different ethnicities in Macau have, “the same status and educational attainment,” once, being “always a popular topic”, “to the best of my knowledge, this paper is the first on the distribution of educational attainment in Macau.”
The author found, “that ethnical characteristics do affect the choice and pattern of educational attainment in Macau when controlling for age and gender. One of the main findings is that “multiracial (Chinese and Portuguese) and Portuguese have higher educational attainment in general.” 
However, states Chi Chong Tang, “the effects of ethnic characteristics are decreasing in younger generations.”
Does this mean the differences disappear in one or two generations? “The current empirical evidence shows that the ethnical effect on educational attainment is decreasing in young generations,” the author assures the Macau News Agency. “Of course, we can expect that those effects will disappear in the future, however, it is also possible that the Chinese in Macau will have higher educational attainment than the Portuguese and the multiracial (Chinese and Portuguese) in the future. Therefore, I personally think that we cannot simply say those effects will disappear, as it is still unclear from the current evidence.”

Chi Chong Tang is a researcher from the Centre for Gaming and Tourism Studies at Macau Polytechnic Institute


Although, the Statistics and Census Service of Macau reports six ethnicities (Chinese, Portuguese, Chinese and Portuguese, Chinese and non-Portuguese, Portuguese and other ethnicities, and other ethnicities), the author worked with three (Chinese, Portuguese, and multiracial [Chinese and Portuguese]), “as the three groups that represent the population of Macau.”
For the author there are two key observations: the first is that “the multiracial (Chinese and Portuguese) and Portuguese groups tend to have higher academic qualifications compared to Chinese.”
Chi Chong Tang gives an example: “for lower academic qualifications, such as completing primary school, the multiracial (Chinese and Portuguese) and Portuguese groups will decrease the probabilities, while for higher academic qualifications, such as having a degree, the probabilities will be increased for these two ethnicities, compared to Chinese.”
The second key observation is related to the magnitude of the marginal effects: “for the younger age group, the marginal effects of ethnic characteristics tend to be smaller, meaning that being a member of different ethnic groups does not matter as much as it does for the older generation.”

Still the Portuguese heritage

The researcher from Centre for Gaming and Tourism Studies includes historical and sociological context to explain the conclusions.
On the one hand, “only after 1978, the burdens of financing education for children are relieved for most of the families in Macau since the government started to subsidize students studying in non-profit private schools in Macau.” Compulsory education started to be enforced for all Macau citizens from 5 to 15 years old in 1999. “More people could receive an education, even though they were from a relatively poor ethnicity.”
On the other hand, while, “most Macau citizens were denied access to social mobility in the government because the government preferred Portuguese officers before the turnover in 1999 and because the Portuguese language was widely used in the legal system for official documents,” job offers from the gaming industry, “did not require high academic qualifications and paid relatively higher compared to other jobs in the private sector of Macau; this encouraged Macau citizens to choose not to receive or pay for education, and instead choose to go into the gaming industry after completing the minimum educational requirement.”
However, since the transfer of sovereignty Macau citizens, “are more able to afford higher academic qualifications.” That’s why, “the marginal effects of ethnic characteristics on educational attainment tend to be smaller in younger age groups since people are more able to afford education, even though they are from different ethnicities.”