Research

Abstract Global demographic changes in recent decades have sharply altered the contexts in which governments provide education. Focusing on primary education, we demonstrate, first, that recent demographic trends have been highly polarizing for education systems worldwide. Persistent expansionary pressures burden some of the least‐resourced educational systems, whereas these pressures are reversing in wealthier countries with higher educational expenditures. Second, we document that global educational systems have adapted to narrow gaps in student‐ or child‐teacher ratios, despite polarizing demographic trends. Third, we show that system responses vary where school‐age cohorts are declining, although little is known about the impacts of system responses. And, finally, examining Korea, a case at the leading edge of the transition to population scarcity, we demonstrate that educational system consolidation can introduce new salience to geospatial hierarchies and the political economy of allocative decisions. Policy decentralization and popular resistance stymied a trend in which nonmetropolitan areas bore the brunt of primary school closures and teacher losses, while metropolitan areas saw increases in schools and teachers despite student declines. Research is sorely needed to understand how national educational systems are impacted by and adapting to the disparate forces of population growth and scarcity.