Household Decision-Making Process: It’s Effect on School Dropout Behavior for Girls in the Secondary School Level in Bangladesh

S M Shahidul

doi:10.5539/ies.v6n1p132

Abstract

This study aims to understand the parents’ household decision-making process with respect to allowing girls to drop out of school, an area that has, thus far, been overlooked in the research regarding school dropouts. This paper has examined the household decision-making process between fathers and mothers and explores how their respective levels of participation affect on the educational outcome for girls. Data were collected in September 2010 from questionnaires administered to the parents of female students in the sub-district of Pirgonj in Bangladesh. The individual participation index (PI) of both the fathers and the mothers was estimated for four major household matters, and the bargaining level of fathers and mothers was measured by comparing the participation indices. Logistic regression was then conducted to examine how the participation levels of fathers and mothers predicted dropout outcomes for girls. The results show that mothers had less bargaining power than fathers in the decision-making process as the mean for the mother’s participation index is found to be “rarely”, while the father’s index is found to be “very often” when using a 5-point Likert-typescale. In the logistic regression model, the participation levels of fathers and mothers indicate diverse effects on dropout outcomes in which the father’s participation positively predicts the dropout outcome for girls and the mother’s participation negatively predicts the dropout outcome for girls.

Highlights

The school dropout rate for girls is significantly higher than it is for boys in Bangladesh, where nearly 80% of the girls in the secondary level leave school before completing grade X (Bangladesh Education Bureau of Statistics Report, 2005.) the school dropout issue for girls has been explored before, the decision-making process exercised by the parents for girls to leave school early has been neglected
This study argues that when the mother participates with the father in the household decision-making, household decisions are less gender biased or daughters receive preference over sons
The results in table 1 show that the mean of the fathers’ participation index (PI) is 4, which indicates that fathers “very often participate”, while the mothers’ participation index (PI) is 2, which indicates that mothers “rarely participated”

Summary

Introduction

The school dropout rate for girls is significantly higher than it is for boys in Bangladesh, where nearly 80% of the girls in the secondary level leave school before completing grade X (Bangladesh Education Bureau of Statistics Report, 2005.) the school dropout issue for girls has been explored before, the decision-making process exercised by the parents for girls to leave school early has been neglected. This study argues that when the mother participates with the father in the household decision-making, household decisions are less gender biased or daughters receive preference over sons. Scholars explained this phenomenon by stating that women are, on average, more altruistic and less gender biased than man (Enland & Paula 1989).Somewhat consistent with this argument (Kruper & Uzgiris, 1987; Lytton & Romney, 1991) found that mothers are more likely to prefer www.ccsenet.org/ies. With respect to the mother’s employment status, mothers who are living in the house and caring for the family are considered housewives, while mothers who are employed in an office or an institutional setting are considered to have employee status

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion