Millennium Development Goals: Measuring within-Country Inequalities for Selected Indicators for South America Using IPUMS-International Data (1990-2010)

Ana Cuesta, University of Minnesota
Rodrigo Lovaton Davila, University of Minnesota

The objective of this paper is to determine if achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for a country has an impact on the geographical disparities, for some selected indicators, within the country. IPUMS-I data provide variables comparable between countries (while the sources traditionally used by the United Nations are not) and allow examining differences for lower levels of geography and between urban and rural settings.We measure indicators related to education, gender equality, and some for poverty and maternal health. For all of them, we will be primarily interested in disparities by gender across geographical units. Furthermore, we will track changes for these indicators for all census rounds available since the establishment of the MDGs. Finally, we explore demographic factors related to higher disparities for these indicators.