Disaggregated Pattern of Gender Gap in Education In Indian Population: A Fresh Exploration

Abstract

Equal access to educational opportunity is a basic human right essential to well being. Yet educational gap at attainment levels between male and female in India is staggering. Reduction in such gap is essential for more than one reason. Latest population census 2001 indicates considerable difference in literacy rate at all India as well as state level between male and female. Furthermore, NSSO 55th round data also strongly substantiate this finding. In this paper we use mapping technique to depict the state level pattern of gender inequality in literacy rate based on Census data. Section III deals with gender gap in average years of schooling on the basis of scholastic attainment data from NSSO 55th round. In the next section we employ Educational Lorenz distribution and Gini coefficient to grasp the distributive dimension of gender inequality in education. Considering equitable educational development as a function of average years of schooling and education Gini coefficient, in the next section we have undergone decomposition of gender gap in equitable educational development, both at the national and at the sub-national level. The results of the decomposition analysis clearly indicate that both in the urban and rural sector, gender gap in equitable educational development are largely due to gender gap in average years of schooling. The gender gap in the educational distribution is much less important. Finally we analyse the relationship between gender gap in equitable educational development and monthly per capita expenditure to examine the relationship between economic affluence and gender equality in education. For the urban population, the analysis shows that economic prosperity can combat gender disparity in educational attainment and the finding is more or less robust. But state level disaggregative analysis, however, does not always confirm the above findings. For the rural population, surprisingly, economic prosperity has significant positive relationship with gender gap in education. The study concludes that prosperity alone can not ensure gender equality in education in Indian societies. Findings of this study may be found to be helpful for researcher, planners and activist in this field.