Do separate female toilets in primary and upper primary schools improve female enrollment? A case study from India

Abstract

The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), initiated by the Indian Government, and UNESCO's School Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSHE) Program started providing gender-specific toilets in government schools in the late nineties. This paper examines the connection between separate female toilets and the gender parity indices of enrollment and participation in the primary (grades I–V) and upper primary (grades VI–VIII) levels of education for 28 states and four union territories of India between 2007 and 2015. Additionally, this paper investigates whether separate female toilets improve the gender parity index of education for scheduled-caste students. The results show that separate female toilets in schools are positively associated with the gender parity indices of enrollment and participation at the upper primary level only for all castes combined. This paper finds no evidence to suggest that separate female toilets can improve the gender parity indices of enrollment and participation for scheduled-caste students at the upper primary level. Additionally, separate female toilets in schools are negatively associated with the gender parity index of enrollment for scheduled-caste students at the primary level, which indicates tremendous caste-related discrimination in Indian society.