Socioeconomic disparities in school life expectancy among India and its major states of India in the last decade: Insights from large scale household surveys data

Abstract

BackgroundThere is a dearth of research on School Life Expectancy (SLE) in India, with limited studies addressing the influence of socioeconomic disparities on SLE. This study aims to investigate the changes in socioeconomic inequalities in SLE across India and its major states during the period spanning from 2007 to 2018. MethodsTo accomplish this, we utilized data from two rounds of the National Sample Survey NSS 64th (2007–08) and 75th (2017–18), to compute the SLE of children aged 6 to 18, encompassing primary to secondary education. To quantify the educational disparities in SLE among various socioeconomic categories over the decade, we employed both Absolute Inequality (AI) and Relative Inequality (RI) indices. ResultsThe overall SLE for primary to secondary education experienced a significant increase of 0.75 years between 2007–08 and 2017–18. Among the 15 major states of India, notable variations in the extent of SLE improvements were observed. During this period, there was an absolute gap that ranged from 0.61 to 0.44 years and a relative gap of 4.79 percent among the states. The disparities between urban and rural areas notably widened during this period. The gap between children from the lowest quintile of monthly per capita expenditutre (MPCE) and those from the highest quintile of MPCE decreased significantly, reducing from 2.18 years in 2007–08 to 1.20 years in 2017–18. Furthermore, differences in SLE based on caste and religion also exhibited significant reductions. ConclusionThis study reveals that socioeconomic disparities in SLE in India are relatively modest, highlighting the importance of further understanding the determinants of these inequalities and assessing the effectiveness of interventions aimed at addressing them.