Volume 48 - Article 33 | Pages 931–944
The gender gap in schooling outcomes: A cohort study of young men and women in India
By John Nunley, Nabamita Dutta
Abstract
Background: Although literacy rates in India have improved for both men and women, less is known about the evolution of gender disparities across different levels of educational attainment.
Objective: The goal is to determine whether gender gaps in schooling outcomes have narrowed, widened, or remained unchanged across birth cohorts.
Methods: With a multinomial logit specification, we compare six education outcomes for people born to the 1956‒1960, 1961‒1965, …, and 1986‒1990 cohort groups. Our empirical tests indicate whether the gender gaps have narrowed, widened, or remained unchanged across the cohort groups.
Results: We find evidence of narrowing gender gaps for some but not all education outcomes. The gender gaps narrow for not attending school, attending primary school, and primary school completion, but they persist for secondary school completion, attending college, and college completion.
Conclusions: Although we observe improvements in the gender gaps in schooling outcomes toward the lower end of the education spectrum, gender inequities associated with higher levels of schooling persist across cohort groups. It is important to understand the causes of these patterns, as there are likely important policy considerations for India as it grapples with the interactions among technological change, a relatively young workforce, and persistent gendered norms and attitudes.
Contribution: The paper makes two noteworthy contributions. First, we show that gender progress in schooling outcomes is not uniform across different levels of educational attainment. Second, our cohort study framework provides a simple test for progress (or lack thereof) in education and other settings.
Author's Affiliation
- John Nunley - University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, United States of America EMAIL
- Nabamita Dutta - University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, United States of America EMAIL
Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research
Demographic convergence in marriage timing: Intersecting gender and educational expansion
Volume 52 - Article 14
| Keywords:
age at marriage,
convergence,
cross-country,
education,
gender,
union formation
Job creation, job destruction, and fertility in Germany
Volume 52 - Article 13
| Keywords:
fertility,
gender,
Germany,
job creation,
job destruction,
labor market,
spatial modelling,
unemployment
Gender differences in routine housework among one-person households: A cross-national analysis
Volume 52 - Article 12
| Keywords:
cross-national research,
gender,
housework,
unipersonal households
The transition to adulthood in Europe at the intersection of gender and parental socioeconomic status
Volume 51 - Article 23
| Keywords:
Europe,
Europe,
event history,
event history,
gender,
multilevel analysis,
parental socio-economic status,
stratification,
transition to adulthood
Trajectories of US parents’ divisions of domestic labor throughout the COVID-19 pandemic
Volume 51 - Article 12
| Keywords:
childcare,
COVID-19,
division of labor,
fathers,
gender,
housework,
mothers
Cited References: 10
Download to Citation Manager
PubMed
Google Scholar